Aftershock: McCoy
by Cirocco
Summary: 'Aftershock', mostly from Jack McCoy's point of view.
1. Execution

**CHAPTER 1: EXECUTION**

_The law allows for certain defenses to murder._

_This is a simple case._

_'Extreme emotional disturbance.'__  What exactly does that justify?_

_These are the facts of the case.  And they are undisputed._

Jack sighed as he scratched out that last line.  That was from "A Few Good Men," which he and Claire had rented a few days ago.  Too bad, because it was a very good line.  Maybe he could use it a few years from now, when the movie had faded from public memory a bit and the jurors wouldn't immediately be distracted by the quote and start thinking of Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson instead of the case before them.

Four times he'd started to write the closing statement for this stupid case, and four times he'd started over.

All right, come on, he tried to work up some kind of enthusiasm.  How about giving the jury a simple reminder of the facts, which were, as he had just written and scratched out, undisputed.

_- Penelope Marie Kirksen killed her husband, Gerard Alan Kirksen  
- GK cheated on her (scratch out) had affair with her friend Sarah Rosewilde (maybe not mention name)  
- PK found out from a mutual friend, came home, shot him with his own gun  
- PK called 911 right after killing him  
- 911 tape of her sobbing into the phone: didn't mean to kill him, just very upset._

Those were the facts of the case.  And they were indeed undisputed.

It had been ridiculously easy for the prosecution to prove that Penny Kirksen had caused Gerry Kirksen's death, and ridiculously easy for the defense to prove extreme emotional disturbance.  Jack had no problem with letting the defense use it to argue for leniency, but the problem was that Kirksen wanted to get off scot-free.  Stupid woman.  Stupid defense lawyer for not being able to convince her that she should take a deal.  They were all wasting their time.  The jury would find her guilty and probably sentence her to 3-9 years, which was exactly what Jack had offered as a deal in the first place.  All this time and effort, for nothing.

He sighed.  Any ADA could have taken this case.  As EADA, Jack usually got both the privilege and the responsibility of tackling the harder cases - the strange ones, the twisted ones, the ones that brought up unique or tricky legal issues.  Straight-up murder usually went to the ADAs.  He should have just let Claire do it, but Claire had been overworked and out of sorts lately, so he'd taken on People v. Kirksen.  Now he rather regretted it.  After doing so many of these in more than twenty years of prosecution, they all kind of blurred together in the mind, and it wasn't easy to work up enthusiasm for yet another simple domestic homicide.

Jack sat up on the couch and stretched, then dropped back to his customary half-lying down position, notebook propped up on his thigh.  What time was it?  9pm.  He should go home.  He could probably just improvise the summation as he spoke in front of the jury the day after tomorrow.  He normally didn't like to do that, though.  Part of how he'd become an EADA was that he was meticulous and driven about his work - willing and able to wing it in the courtroom when circumstances demanded, but preferring to prepare conscientiously whenever possible.  Relying on last-minute inspiration as a way of life was arrogant and careless, and led to stupid, avoidable mistakes.  He was unashamedly arrogant, but he wasn't careless.

He mentally ran over his To Do list.  First, finish the Kirksen closing.  He had all day tomorrow to do it, but he really should finish it tonight and read it over tomorrow with fresh eyes.  Also: send over some files to Ruth Miller as she was wrapping up all loose ends in the Crenshaw case - no, Claire had said she was going to do that.  He should also look over some of the notes Claire had left him regarding the latest plea bargains.  She'd had a session with Travers today that hadn't gone terribly well - some pleas they both thought would be shoo-ins had been flatly rejected.

He looked at the Kirksen folder in front of him again.  Focus.  Think think think.

Not a clue what to say.  The case had been boring from the start, and he just didn't feel terribly inspired.  Maybe he should ask Claire to work on the closing tonight - she seemed to be able to work up more enthusiasm than he.

Maybe he shouldn't.  Claire had gone home a couple of hours ago, and while she rivaled him for dedication to the job and length of hours spent at Hogan Place, she didn't appreciate it when he called her at home regarding work.

Besides, things weren't exactly going swimmingly with Claire lately.  She'd walked out in a bit of a huff, he couldn't really remember over what.  Possibly another request for paperwork, possibly he'd forgotten something personal.  Anniversary?  Birthday?

Jack sighed.  Part of why he tended to get involved with women he worked with was that work was what interested him the most, so he had a built-in connection to the women he took to bed.  Unfortunately, he wasn't the most romantic or sensitive person in the world and women, even the sensible, practical women he worked with, occasionally wanted romance.  Not his strong suit.  He could do flirting, he could do intellectual debate, he could do passionate argument and passionate bedroom activities, but flowers, anniversaries, stuffed animals and candy-covered chocolates were just not his thing.  And sometimes that got him in trouble with the women he was involved with.  He wondered if that was what Claire had huffed off about.

Probably not, since Claire was also rather unromantic.  It was something they had in common. And she tended to be fairly blunt when she was unhappy about something - didn't brood like Sally had, or hint, like Diana.  If he'd missed an anniversary of some sort (and he couldn't think of any) she probably would've missed it too, or she would have reminded him point-blank.

Maybe it was the damn execution again.  They'd been tense around each other as the date drew closer - or rather, she had been tense as the date grew closer, and that impacted on him.  Especially since her bad mood came out when he was least expecting it, over things that he couldn't connect to Mickey Scott at all.

Like this morning, they'd been talking about a first-degree murder case in Texas where the defense was pleading insanity.  She'd just about bitten his head off when he expressed a wish that New York's definition of insanity as a defense were as narrow as that of Texas.

"So that we can rival Texas for percentage of inmates on death row?  That's really something to strive for, Jack."

"It would make our job somewhat easier."

"And that's what's important.  Who cares about justice.  The important thing is to make our job easier," she'd said in disgust.  He'd opened his mouth to argue with her, then the rarely-used portion of his brain responsible for sensitivity leapt up and tugged at him, reminding him that Claire probably wouldn't appreciate yet another debate on the subject.  He'd closed his mouth.

He looked down at his notes.  Claire should do this closing statement, because he really wasn't getting anywhere on it.  He'd pick at it for a bit longer, go home, then bring it to her in the morning so that she could finish it up.  They could also work on it in the car on the way to Attica for the execution; it would certainly be a long enough drive.

Although maybe he shouldn't rely on the car ride to provide them with working time.  Claire might want to go on and on about the injustice of the death penalty yet again.  He mentally groaned, thinking of spending seven hours in a car with Claire Kincaid on an idealistic rant about anything, let alone justice and the death penalty.  And once again he asked himself what he had been thinking when he agreed to attend the execution with Claire.

At the time it had seemed the logical thing to do.  She had read the notice of the date of execution and told him, slightly challengingly, that she was going to attend.  He'd asked her why, and she'd said, somewhat righteously,  "Because I have an obligation to attend.  I was part of the process that's brought this about.  Not attending would be irresponsible."

He'd nodded and gone back to his work, not giving it much thought, then noticed that Claire was still standing there, looking at him expectantly.  He'd looked up at her questioningly.

"Yes?"

"I take it you won't be going?" she'd asked.  He raised his eyebrows at her.  No, he hadn't thought about it until that minute.  He saw no need to attend the carrying out of this sentence, any more than he saw the need to attend the first day of a prison term for any of the other criminals that he helped to punish.  He and Claire had stared at each other for a few moments, then he'd said, somewhat cautiously,

"I take it you think I should?"

"Don't you feel any sense of responsibility for this?" she'd answered his question with one of her own.

"Of course.  I was responsible for putting Scott on Death Row.  So were you and Adam - and even Detectives Briscoe and Curtis.  That doesn't mean that we have an obligation to attend his execution."

"So you can just send a man off to die and not feel any consequence for that action."

"What consequence should I feel?"

"Doesn't it impact on you at all, that he's going to die?"

"No, it doesn't.  Any more than it impacts on me that..." he pulled a name out of his current caseload, "Eric Fitzgibbons is going to go to Sing Sing for six years."

"Eric Fitzgibbons is going to live.  Mickey Scott is going to die."

There didn't seem to be anything to say about that.  It was a simple statement of truth.

"Or is it that you don't want to acknowledge that this is any different from any other sentence?"

"It _is_ no different from any other sentence.  The crime was First Degree Murder.  The penalties possible were Life Without Parole or Death.  The trial was carried out with regard to the law, twelve citizens found Scott guilty and sentenced him accordingly.  This is no different from any other case, Claire."

"And you can keep telling yourself that, because you won't be there to witness what the sentence means.  How can you impose a sentence when you don't even know what you're imposing?"

"I don't witness what the sentence means in most cases.  I've never been incarcerated, I've never seen the inside of a prison except for the parts of it that visitors go to in order to meet with inmates.  That doesn't mean I can't ask for a sentence of incarceration."

"And you see no difference?"

"No, I don't."

She'd glared at him, frustrated by her inability to pierce his equanimity.

"You don't think it would make any impact on you?  To actually witness the carrying out of this sentence?"

"No, I don't," he'd replied honestly.  She'd blown out her breath, then looked at him speculatively.

"Then come with me."

"Excuse me?"

"Come with me.  Be one of the witnesses."

He'd readily agreed.  Surprising her, but not himself.  He didn't know what Claire had expected from him, but she should have known better if she expected him to try to avoid something that didn't need avoiding.  There was no reason not to go - other than the fact that it would be a considerable waste of time.  Which wasn't a problem for him.  As unromantic as Jack was, he wasn't totally insensitive or cavalier about his relationships.  If his attendance at the execution would help Claire, or help make their working and personal relationships smoother, then he had no objection and considered the trip a worthwhile investment of time.

It had made sense, at the time, when this was all theoretical.  When he hadn't been the unwilling recipient of Claire's somewhat tedious moral hand wringing over the subject for weeks.  He certainly hoped that once the execution was over, her qualms would subside, and things between them would go back to what they had been before.  But first, they had to survive six or seven hours cooped up in the car, treading the same tired ground back and forth.  He wasn't looking forward to the ride.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, he told himself.  Claire had been getting more tense about the execution, and she made little comments about it every so often, but she had also been getting more and more quiet when it came to prolonged discussions about it.  As if she were running out of steam - or maybe just running out of energy to talk about it with him.

Which was fine with him.  Why she stopped talking about it wasn't as important as the fact that she did.  He felt badly for her, of course, and wished he could help her through this moral quagmire she was battling through, but didn't really have the requisite patience for it.  Her more and more frequent silence on the subject was a welcome change.

Back to Kirksen.  Straight up statement of facts, then segue into why the facts were not in dispute, but the consequences of the facts were.

_What is in dispute is what price Penny Kirksen should pay for what happened that night._

No, hang on, the murder happened in the afternoon.  Jack corrected that last part.  He really needed Claire to look this over and make sure he made no factual errors in his summation.  He sighed in annoyance.  Why was he having such trouble concentrating tonight?  Why did his mind keep wandering over to Claire and their relationship lately?  Normally he didn't give it a second thought - didn't even think of it as a 'relationship'.  It wasn't a 'relationship', and Claire wasn't his 'significant other' - she was just Claire.  Part of his life, at work and after work.

So why this distraction tonight?  Why was he thinking of Claire and their arguing, or not arguing, about the death penalty? Claire wasn't whining about it so much any more.  Why couldn't he just accept that, be grateful, and get on with his work?

He had a sudden flash of insight - rather rare for him - remembering Sally going silent in exactly the same way near the end of their time together.  She had slowly grown less and less likely to voice disagreements with him, less and less strident when disagreements came up.  He had taken it as a sign of harmony, but it had actually been a sign of disinterest, and her disinterest had gradually rubbed off on him too.  She'd eventually broken off their relationship, with no protest from him, and left the DA's office for defense work.

Was that what was going on with Claire?  Was she getting tired of their constant struggles? What would she do about it if she were?  He felt a brief stab of alarm, imagining Claire becoming a defense lawyer.  Imagining her ethical, idealistic nature twisted to protect the scum of the earth, as Sally did, as Diana had before he'd had her disbarred.  Not that Sally or Diana had ever been idealistic in the way that Claire was.

No, he was overreacting.  Barring a little tension in the last weeks, he and Claire were fine.  Besides, Claire wouldn't go into defense, he reassured himself.

But then what was going on with her?  And when would she snap out of this funk she was sliding into?  It wasn't just the death penalty, either.  She had said she was getting tired of being on the Maginot line of the justice system, had actually said she was thinking of quitting, a few weeks ago.  Would she?  And if she did, what would she do?

Although... maybe this funk of hers was actually pretty simple at heart.  Maybe it all just had to do with her difficulty with the death penalty.  Her feeling that she was part of a flawed, uncivilized legal system, precisely because it contained the 'savagery' of executions.  Maybe going to see the execution tomorrow would be good for her.  Maybe once she saw that Scott's death was carried out humanely, she would understand that it wasn't barbaric.  With all the blood and gore they saw in their daily lives, maybe she would be able to see that Scott's fate wasn't that bad, comparatively speaking.  That their work, even when it led to a man's death, was good work nonetheless.  Maybe she would snap out of her blues and they could go back to business as usual.

Right.

He firmly brought his mind back to Kirksen.

_The facts of the case have all been presented to you, and they are not in dispute._

That was skirting a little too close to the movie version, but he decided to leave it in for now.

_What is in dispute is what price Penny Kirksen should pay for her actions._

No, she's not Penny, she's Penelope or Mrs. Kirksen.  And he's Gerry.  You want to distance her from the jury, make him more sympathetic.  'Penny' probably makes terrific apple pie and would never kill anybody, and 'Gerard' sounds like a foreign diplomat who claims diplomatic immunity when he's given a parking ticket.  Penelope and Gerry, though... that's a totally different scenario.

_She would have you believe that, being emotionally upset as she was, she was not really responsible for her actions and she should not be held liable.  And there is no doubt that her husband's actions were reprehensible and he caused her emotional distress.  But you have to ask yourselves how reasonable it is to expect emotional distress to excuse all actions.  Penelope Kirksen may have been upset, but this does not mean that she had no control over her actions._

_The fact is, Gerry Kirksen was a son of a bitch._

No, he scratched that out, the judge would be somewhat unamused if he used that kind of language in court.

_The fact is, Gerry Kirksen deserved to suffer some kind of consequence for his actions.  He deserved to have his wife walk out on him and sue for divorce.  He did not deserve to die.  And if you acquit Mrs. Kirksen, you're saying Gerry Kirksen deserved to die.  That's just not an option._

There.  That was one of the weakest closing statements he'd ever made.  Tomorrow he'd have Claire go over it and salvage what she could.  While she was doing that, he could probably look up a couple of his old cases, see what he'd said in the past to counter unreasonable defenses of extreme emotional disturbance.  He stretched out again and stood up to go home.

**ooo000ooo**

Jack suppressed a yawn as he drove along the I-90.  He and Claire had plodded through the Kirksen closing and she'd improved it immensely.  Which was good, even though they might not need it after all.  Kirksen's lawyer had, immediately after winding down his case this morning, said that they might be willing to get a deal, provided it was 2 to 6.  Jack had again offered 3 to 9, and the lawyer had said he needed to talk it over with Kirksen.  Happily, the judge had been quite willing to allow both sides two days to ponder the subject, since he had some other unspecified obligations taking up his time right now anyway.  They were all getting a two-day reprieve from the case.

He and Claire had spent the rest of the day rather conflict-free.  They had court in the morning and then both of them worked madly through the afternoon, knowing that they might not be able to put in a full workday the next day.  Six or seven hours to Attica, witness the execution, six or seven hours back.  Even though they were both planning on taking turns napping in the car and were used to working on little sleep when the need arose, the fact remained that they would probably not be functioning optimally the next day.

"What's next?"  Jack asked Claire as she put away their revised notes for Kirksen and pulled out a bunch of files.

"Plea bargains.  Three cases tomorrow morning with Silverman: Simmons, Mandelay and Carson.  Then Gomez with Glacken the day after."

"I thought Estevez was doing Simmons."

"She just went on maternity leave."

"Ida Estevez was pregnant?"  Jack was surprised.

"You didn't notice?" Claire smiled at him indulgently.

"No," he passed a minivan, "she's a little on the heavy side to begin with."

"She's not that heavy," Claire protested.

"Maternity isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I see her.  Usually I'm just hoping to survive an encounter with my... dignity intact."  Claire smiled.  Estevez had the well-deserved nickname of The Barracuda among the prosecutors of Hogan Place.  Jack was probably one of the only prosecutors who were joking when they expressed fear of the woman.  For most of them, the fear was very real.

"First up, Carson," Claire began, and they plunged into the plea bargains.

As they worked, part of Jack's mind was thinking of how different Claire's approach to plea bargains was these days.  She had never been soft, but her willingness to plea down had decreased dramatically since her encounter with James Smith.  Smith, a homeless schizophrenic, had stalked a woman several months back.  Claire had pled him out, as was customary in stalking cases with no overt violence, with a slap on the wrist.  It had been an appropriate deal, given what she knew of the case.  The only thing that had made it any different from any of the hundreds of other deals that Claire had made was that Smith had, months later, gone berserk and killed three people and permanently maimed another.

Claire had been agonizing about it ever since, and it came out in her attitude towards her work and towards plea bargains.  She was, if anything, even more conscientious now, and had become decidedly less forgiving and more hard-line.

Smith had also been the case that had prompted her to tell Jack that she was thinking of quitting.  He'd talked her out of it at the time, and they hadn't spoken of it since.  Now, listening to her go through cases, he wondered if she was still thinking along those lines.  Maybe he should ask.

Maybe not.  If she wanted to talk about it, she probably would have brought it up.

Claire was taking out another file.  "The Mandelay case, Kevin and Marisa."

"Bonnie and Clyde?" Jack hazarded a guess.  Mandelay, Mandelay, that was a young couple...

"No, they're brother and sister.  Silverman wants leniency for the girl."

Right, right, brother and sister, the facts of the case were crystallizing as he thought about it.  A hold-up.  The brother was a known hoodlum, no problem getting the max for him, but the sister... "She'll be very sympathetic.  She's got no record."

"She held up a bodega, Jack."

"He'll argue that she was just along for the ride."

"Silverman's a pussycat.  I can take him," Claire said confidently.

"I happen to agree with him.  I don't think a jury would convict her.  Wasn't she on the honour roll?"

"You want me to take a lesser charge for her?"

"It's your call," Jack deferred to her judgment dubiously.  Claire was a big girl and this was her area.  He was technically her superior, but when it came to plea bargains he mostly just played a consultant's role.  And he considered it doubly important to show her he still had confidence in her plea bargains since the Smith fiasco.

"I want Man One for both.  She knew what she was doing."

"OK... if you think Silverman will go for it."  He probably would, now that Jack thought of it.  Silverman was a bit of a pushover, and Claire was decidedly not.  Jack yawned and took a look at the clock.  Nine thirty.  It wasn't that late, but he suddenly realized he'd better try to catch sleep whenever he could.  Might make tomorrow a little less tedious.  Besides, this way if he was too tired to drive during the night and Claire was too tired to drive by herself, he could stay awake and maybe keep her company.  "Do you mind driving?"

"No, of course not," he drove to the shoulder and they switched places.

"I'm think I'll try to nap a bit."  He leaned back and closed his eyes.  As he drifted off, he thought of Simmons.  They hadn't discussed the Simmons case yet.  Oh well, they could probably get to it when Claire woke him up, or at some point during their ride home.  Or maybe Claire didn't think it was important enough to bother talking it over with him.

**ooo000ooo**

"Jack, wake up," Claire was shaking his shoulder.  He blinked himself awake.  The car was stopped at a parking lot.  The Attica parking lot.

"Oh.  You drove all the way here," he said sleepily.

"I didn't want to wake you up," she told him.  He nodded and got out of the car, stretching.  They silently entered the institution, showed their identification, and were ushered into the observation room.  They took seats in the second row and waited.  Jack glanced around the room.  Ten seats in two rows, most of the seats filled already.  Adele Saunders' parents, four other people he didn't recognize.  One of them looked vaguely familiar; probably the reporter who had covered a lot of the Scott case, but Jack wasn't entirely sure.

Jack checked his watch.  11:45pm.  The door opened and Detectives Briscoe and Curtis walked in, the last two witnesses expected, according to the number of chairs set out.  Briscoe sat down, briefly greeting Jack and Claire.  Curtis looked about the room curiously as he took his seat next to Briscoe.  Almost immediately, the door opened again and a man in a suit entered, introducing himself as the Warden to the witnesses.  He reminded everybody that this should be a dignified execution and that they could talk to a chaplain afterwards if they needed to.  Jack glanced at Claire, hoping she wouldn't make a scene - then immediately told himself that was ridiculous.  Claire would never make a scene.

Talking from the other room.  Somebody was asking Scott about his last meal.

"Now is not a good time to go crybaby, Mickey," the voice said.

"Yeah, right, in your dreams."  Too bad.  Scott wouldn't cry - he was an inhuman monster, probably incapable of any human emotions.

He heard the Warden come in and ask about a priest and Scott, of course, decline.  A priest would have seemed rather out of place at Scott's side at the end of his worthless life.

"How about the curtain?"

"What about it?" Scott asked.

"It's your choice, Mr. Scott.  Open or closed?"

"What would you like?"

"Closed," the Warden replied.  The wrong thing to say, because if Jack were going to bet on this he would bet that Scott would say-

"Then open the sucker up."

Exactly.  Vintage Mickey Scott: an antagonistic, evil bastard to the very end.

"Fine."

The curtain opened.  There was Mickey Scott.  He was strapped down, his arms out, barefoot.  All his violent menace taken from him, awaiting his death.  Exactly where he deserved to be.  Scott lifted his head from the gurney and stared at them.

"Like damned fish in a barrel," he sneered at the people in the observation room.  McCoy almost laughed at his pathetic attempt at bravado.

"Want to say anything?"

"Do it," he said tensely.  Jack felt mild surprise.  He would have thought Scott would take the opportunity to shout a few foulmouthed insults at Adele Saunders' parents, or at the Warden or police or prosecutors, or even at Adele Saunders herself.

Two men who had entered the execution chamber opened a panel and turned some dials, then closed the panel and left the room.  Jack remained impassive, staring straight at Mickey Scott.  This was it, then.  Those two men had just begun the final stage of a process of sentencing that had started with Claire at Scott's arraignment hearing and culminated in a death penalty handed down by a jury in accordance with New York State law.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see that on the panel, a light turned green, then another turned yellow.

This was no different from any other sentence.  If Claire thought it was, she was mistaken.  People died all the time, this was no different from any other death, this was no more barbaric just because it was brought about by the criminal justice system.

In fact, it was far less barbaric than Adele Saunders' death had been.  Maybe once Claire had finished watching this she would stop all of this nonsense about the injustice of the death penalty.  This was not unjust.  In fact, it was one of the most just deaths a person could possibly experience.  For most people, the best they could hope for was that death should come peacefully, at the end of a long, useful, happy life.  Adele Saunders didn't have that.  Most of the victims he and Claire spoke for didn't have that.

The two other people he'd seen die in his life, his grandmother and his father, didn't have that.  His grandmother had died of a heart attack, in pain and scared out of her wits, and his father had died of cancer, tubes coming out of him and drugged out of his mind.  Neither of them deserved that.  Scott was getting off easy.

Scott was looking up at the lights.  The last thing he would ever see.  He looked very tense.

The heart monitor beeped steadily as they all waited for the poison to do its job and end the life of Mickey Scott.

Scott closed his eyes.  The beeping became erratic, closer together, then turned into one long beep.

Case closed.  He just lay there.  One minute Scott was breathing, and then he was gone.  Jack blew out his breath.

The curtain was drawn on the execution chamber.

Jack sat for a moment, feeling... what?

Scott was dead.  He'd done as Claire had asked, come and witnessed Scott's death, and now that duty was done.  And he felt no different about the sentence than he had before Scott breathed his last.

He felt pretty much nothing, as a matter of fact.  There was no sense of justice, vengeance, rightness... or regret or pity or guilt or any of the things Claire probably thought he would feel.  Nothing.

Shaking himself out of his strange blankness, he stood and then glanced at Claire.  Claire had tears in her eyes.  Damn it.  He finally felt something - irritation at Claire, for her useless histrionic sentimentality.  Dismissed it immediately and made himself lean down and murmur, "Claire?  Are you OK?" in what he hoped was at least a semblance of a supportive tone.

"Fine," she said curtly, and stood up, blinking her eyes rapidly but not looking at him.  All right.  She obviously didn't want his support right now.  They left the room in silence.

**ooo000ooo**

Checking out of Attica.  He and Claire waited for Briscoe and Curtis to sign themselves out at the security desk.  Oh - that reminded him of something.

"Detective Curtis," he said quietly as Briscoe retrieved his badge.  Curtis turned around questioningly.  "We asked for the Fox prints, didn't we?" Curtis nodded.  "Where are they?"

"Uh, I think Lennie was - Lennie," Curtis addressed Briscoe as Briscoe put his badge back in his wallet, "the Fox prints?"

"Yeah," Briscoe took over as Curtis retrieved his own badge and handed in his Visitor tag.  "They were down in Evidence.  I put in the request to send them to you."

"I don't have them yet."

"I'll ask again," Briscoe said.  "And hold their hand through it this time."  He waited a beat and Jack nodded at him, indicating that was all he needed to talk to him about.  The detectives headed for the door as he and Claire signed out, but they caught up with them again at the Attica front gate, as all four waited for the gate to open.  There was a small media presence there, flashing lights in their faces as they all walked out, heading towards their cars in two separate directions.

"Ms. Kincaid?" Jack and Claire turned and found themselves facing Margaret and Seamus Saunders, Adele Saunders' parents.  Margaret Saunders had tears in her eyes, but her expression was otherwise satisfied, her husband standing silently behind her.  "Ms. Kincaid, thank you so much for coming tonight."

"You're welcome," Claire said, her voice hollow.

"Mr. McCoy.  Thank you for making the trip out here.  I just - I just wanted to thank both of you for helping us so much.  You know, for, for helping to make sure he got what he deserved."

"You're welcome, ma'am," Jack answered her gently.  Poor woman.  It couldn't have been easy for her to come face to face with her daughter's killer again.  Thank god it was the last time she'd ever have to go through that.

"Those two men that just left - they were the two detectives, weren't they?  They caught that man?"

"Yes ma'am," Claire said.

"It was kind of them to make the trip too.  I wanted to thank them too.  Please let them know we appreciate them coming," she paused.  "It's good to have this all done."

"Yes it is," Jack said.  This was one of the reasons why he'd pushed for Scott's execution.  Because the Saunders family deserved some kind of resolution, inadequate as it was in the face of the loss they'd suffered.

"I feel like Adele's finally at peace," she said, her voice trembling.  She turned to her husband.  "Let's go, Seamus."  They slowly walked away.

Jack glanced at Claire.  Did this matter to her?  While she was busy feeling sorry for Scott, did it matter to her, that the people who deserved the most consideration from them had obtained some measure of peace from Scott's execution?

**ooo000ooo**

Jack drove along the I-90, listening to the radio.  He'd found a sixties station that was having a Clash marathon.  Too bad Claire wasn't awake to enjoy it, since a fondness for sixties music was something they both shared, and she didn't mind The Clash.  But he'd offered to drive and she'd accepted his offer and promptly gone to sleep.  That was probably for the best; she needed her rest.  And he himself felt wide awake.

So.  Tomorrow he had a meeting with Schwinger in the morning - administrative stuff, what she called 'administrivia'.  They were supposed to go over some evaluations of ADAs, re-assign people here and there.  Not one of the aspects of his job that he particularly enjoyed.  Then he had to write up a few briefs for some cases that were slowly, slowly making their way through the judicial system.  Then he had his regular meeting with Adam - Adam would want to know where the Hendersen appeal was going, tie up some loose ends with Crenshaw, Smith and Danforth... that was probably it as far as Adam was concerned.  Oh, he might want to hear about the execution.

What was there to say about the execution, though?  He went to see a man die, and he saw a man die.  Period, end of story.

Adam was probably going to hold a press conference.  Not an aspect of Adam's job that Jack envied.  In fact, he didn't envy any part of Adam's job, but the whole press part of it was probably the one he found the most distasteful.  His own contact with the press was usually, thankfully, limited to curt "No comments," on the way in or out of court during big trials.   Jack had no problem with public speaking, but the press annoyed him on a deep level.  They never wanted full answers, they just wanted the quickest, juiciest, most controversial and therefore best-selling news bites they could get.  If they could twist your words to sell more copy or line up more viewers, so much the better.  They didn't want the truth.

"You can't handle the truth!" floated through his mind.  He chuckled.  A Few Good Men, again.  Good movie, as far as courtroom dramas went.  He had teased Claire that she had only wanted to rent it because of Tom Cruise, and she had teased back that actually, Jack Nicholson was what did it for her - something about his maturity, she said.  They'd laughed together and he'd said, There's something about Demi Moore that's fairly attractive too.

He sighed, thinking about Claire again.  Looking over at her, sleeping seemingly peacefully.

Would this change anything?  Would she finally make peace with this now that it had happened and the earth had not opened up to decry the injustice of the event?  And would that translate into a more peaceful working environment for him as well?

The execution had been pretty peaceful, now that he thought about it.  Scott had been given the dignity of a calm, efficient execution, just as the Warden had requested.  More than he deserved, certainly.  He'd just simply gone to sleep and not woken up again.  Not exactly an adequate punishment for somebody who had caused others so much pain.

His own father had died like that.  Relatively peacefully, breathing one moment, not breathing the next.  People died, after all.  There was no need to make a big deal out of it just because one person died at the hands of the State instead of old age or cancer.

Jack drove on, losing his train of thought as he listened to The Clash.

**ooo000ooo**

Jack had woken Claire up at a truck stop just outside Kingston, finally starting to feel the effects of the long drive, and taken a nap for the last two hours of their drive into New York City.  He'd woken up to the sounds of early morning traffic.  7:30am.

What had he been dreaming about?  There was something just barely escaping the edges of his consciousness... oh, right.

"You know, if Kirksen doesn't take the deal, we should find some way to bring in what she said to the 911 operator into the closing."  She had babbled something about how she was so sorry and she didn't mean to and she should have known better.  Yes, it was in the heat of the moment, and the defense could, if they didn't do it right, turn it against them... but on the other hand, using a defendant's own words against them in closing could be a very powerful tool.  He pondered for a moment, looking over the revised closing statement.  "I'm not actually sure we should plead her out even if she wants to take the three to nine.  I say we give them until noon and then call to say the deal's off the table.  I don't feel like waiting till tomorrow - not with this closing."

"Is that really all that goes on in your head, Jack?"

"I beg your pardon?" he looked up.

"Just work?  Cases?  Who to plead out, who to push to the wall?"

"What else should be going on in my head?"

Claire blew out her breath in frustration.  Oh, no.  Not this again.  He felt his heart sink.

"Mickey Scott?" he ventured.

"We saw him die, Jack.  Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"Yes," Jack nodded, "He's dead.  That case is very much closed."  But not to you, I guess, he thought.  What else could she possibly want to talk about?  Was there anything about this subject that they hadn't already said a thousand times?  Jack put the Kirksen file away and there was a long, uncomfortable pause as they stared out at traffic.  Hundreds of cars motionless on the street, and both of them stuck here, all of them stuck here, staring out at the vast landscape of trapped vehicles.  "Tell you what, they should ban cars in Manhattan," Jack tossed out.  Please, Claire, let's not go into Scott yet again.  "What, no witty response?" he asked her after a pause.

"You leave me speechless," she replied dryly.

"Nobody forced you to watch it," he reminded her.  Nobody forced any of them to watch.  He'd just thought that maybe if they did she would finally be able to let it go.  He wasn't wrong often, but when he was... boy, was he ever wrong.

"I just can't imagine what it must be like, staring at the clock, knowing the exact moment-"

"Adele Saunders thought she was going to work," he interrupted her.  "She ended up dead, your pity's misplaced."

"I'm tired of arguing, Jack."

"Good," he nodded.  So was he.  Who wouldn't be?

"You know, I'm not feeling too well," she said.

"Must be the flu."  The 'too-sensitive-for-prosecutorial-work' flu.

"Yeah, the flu," she answered him wryly, and he mentally reprimanded himself.  Claire wasn't overly sensitive.  Not most of the time.  She had just developed a weak spot when it came to this issue.

"Wanna take the day?" he heard himself saying.  Normally he wouldn't suggest such a thing, firmly believing that the best way to cope with anything was to work.  But he was tired of arguing with her.  And maybe if she spent some time on her own, she might return to work with a clearer outlook on things.

"No, I've got Silverman," she replied, and the wistful tone in her voice, as though she really wished she could take the time away, made the decision for him.

"Cover?"

"You sure?" she asked him, startled.  He nodded.  Sure, why not?  He knew the cases.  They'd talked about them during the drive.  And the unexpected two-day break from Kirksen had freed up his schedule a bit.  Why not.

"OK, fine, I'll drop you off at the office," Claire said gratefully.

"No problem," he got out of the car.

"You've got Schwinger," Claire reminded him.

"She'll wait.  I'll take a cab.  Maybe you'll feel better."  They gazed at each other for a moment, neither one really knowing what to say.  "I'll call you later," he finally promised gruffly and walked away, leaving his concern for her unspoken.

**ooo000ooo**

"Man Two, three to nine?" David Silverman suggested hopefully.

"Man One, five to fifteen."  After bickering back and forth over the Carson case for a while, they'd opened up the second case, Simmons, which Jack had abruptly realized he hadn't spoken to Claire about.  He'd had a brief moment of alarm, then mentally chuckled at himself.  The case was simple enough.  Cloris Simmons had told everybody and their dog that she was going to kill her husband because he was hitting her.  There was no physical evidence linking her to the crime, but no evidence of spousal abuse either.  He'd very quickly settled on five to fifteen.  He was pretty sure that's what Claire would have wanted too.

"That the best you can do?"

"A bird in the hand, David."

"Right.  My mistake.  I forgot how easy this job is when I don't have any choices," David said ruefully.  He took out another file.  "Marisa and Kevin Mandelay."

"Nothing to talk about, Man One all around."

"Come on, Jack, Marisa's an honours student, a member of the math club."

"Who likes to hold up bodegas," Jack reminded him.

"That was Kevin.  Marisa just thought they were going in for Ding-Dongs."

"With an Uzi?" he asked skeptically.

"She's a good kid, Jack.  Give her Aiding and Abetting.  Kevin, he goes the distance."

"Sorry."  Privately, Jack thought that David had a good point.  If they went to a jury, a jury probably would see Marisa Mandelay as a sweet young thing who'd just been led astray by her big brother and made a mistake.  However, Claire had been pretty sure she could get David to accept Man One.  And Jack was willing to bet that she was right.

"You don't like to lose, do you?" Jack suppressed a smile as David gave in and stood up, picking up his files.  Claire had been right after all.  "When's Claire coming back?"

"The flu?  Who knows?"  David nodded, leaving the office.

Simple plea bargains.  He was three for three, and, minor as the thrill was, he suddenly wanted to share the moment with Claire.  To talk to Claire.  To see how she was doing.  He dialed her number.

"Hello, you've reached 555-9870.  Please leave-" Claire's voice began on her answering machine.  He hung up.

What now?  He'd called Schwinger to reschedule, found out she wasn't free again until tomorrow.  No big loss.  The world could live without their ADA evaluations and reassignments for one more day.  He thought of the Kirksen closing, then remembered he'd left it in Claire's car and he had nothing to add to it anyway.  There wasn't anything to be done with that case any more - just wait for Kirksen and her lawyer to get off the pot and say Yea or Nay to the deal on the table.

Well, there was always plenty of other paperwork to be done.  He randomly stuck his hand into a pile of files teetering on the corner of his desk.  Frunt.  There was an interesting situation.  He quickly became lost in the intricacies of the Frunt case.

**ooo000ooo**

Hours later, having attended a rather perfunctory meeting with Adam, he found himself dialing Claire's number again.  Adam had nodded, not terribly interested, as Jack gave his verbal report on Danforth, Smith and Crenshaw.  Then he'd asked where Claire was.  Jack had replied that she seemed to be coming down with the flu and Adam had given him a sour look of impatience.

"Ms. Kincaid has the flu?  That's a new one on me.  I thought young people didn't get sick."

Jack had smiled.

"Well, I have to go get ready for this press conference," Adam had groused, getting up.  "You sure you don't want to step in for this?  Just this once, meet the press?"

"I'm sure the pleasure will be all yours, Adam," he'd quipped.  Another dour scowl.

"You're the one who actually saw the damn thing."

Jack had grinned and got up.  "But you're the one who actually ran for the job of DA.  That makes you the one they want to talk to."  He'd started to head out the door.

"How was it?"  Adam's voice, uncharacteristically subdued and... hesitant, had made him turn around in slight surprise.

"The execution?"  Adam nodded.  "Fine.  Everything went smoothly."  Adam had gazed at him with a bemused expression on his face before dismissing him and going back into his own office to prepare to face the cameras.

Everything had gone smoothly, although he very much doubted that Claire would have described it that way.  He didn't know how she would describe it.  They hadn't talked about it, because he didn't want to get into yet another pointless argument with her.

But what if they could talk about it without arguing?  What if they could just discuss, as rational adults, how she had felt about it now that she'd seen it?  He'd been thinking that there was nothing more to say because they'd talked the subject over thoroughly.  But really, they hadn't.  They hadn't talked it over post-execution.  Who knew, maybe seeing it had affected Claire in some unexpected way.  Maybe if they talked, it wouldn't be a re-tread of everything they'd already said to each other.

So now here he was, dialing Claire's number again.  Waiting for her to pick up, not really knowing what he wanted to say to her, except that he felt like talking to her.  Actually talking to her, maybe try to get past the distance he could feel between them lately.  Even, he realized, even if she wanted to talk about the execution.

And then her damn machine was picking up and then it was beeping and he was winging it, suggesting they have dinner together that night.  Asking her to call him back.  Trying to express his wish to just... spend time together.  Not to argue, not to work.  Just to be together.

**ooo000ooo**

Jack entered the restaurant in a hurry, late as usual for social obligations.  Liz Olivet was sitting by herself, sipping a glass of wine.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, "Claire's out with the flu, I had this brief... Adam..." he trailed off.  He never had a problem keeping work-related appointments.  Briefings, court dates, all of that was easy to schedule.  But a semi-casual lunch with a colleague... somehow that managed to get pushed aside for more important things until all of a sudden he was late.

"No problem, I keep myself good company," Liz replied easily.

"Nice place.  You're paying.  What's good?"

"The pasta if you're PC, the veal if you're not."  He grinned at the thought of anybody calling him PC, then plunged into business.

"I trust you reviewed the Newman file?"  He'd given her the Newman file a few days ago, and was looking forward to picking her brain about it.

"Sure, can't it wait till coffee?"  He glanced at her.

"Maybe you don't know me all that well, Liz.  Outside of work, I really don't have much to say about anything."

"Somehow, I don't believe that," Liz said musingly.  What?  He nodded at her - OK, fine, he wasn't going to get into a discussion of his predilection for shop-talk with Liz.  They had a lot of important material to cover - the Newman and Fox cases, just for starters - and besides, he was hungry.  He looked over the menu.

"What is it, people like you?  You bury yourself in your work," he looked up at Liz.  She continued in the same musing tone.  "I wonder, is it because you're hiding from your emotions or you have no emotions to hide from?"

Oh for the love of God.  Spare me from shrinks in an analytical mode.  "I wouldn't know.  I work because I love it," he asserted.

"All the time?" she asked skeptically.

"Sure."

"It never gets to you?  I mean, basically you're paid to make someone's life miserable."

"Yes, and the better I get at it, the more miserable I make them.  What is this about?"  A waiter had appeared next to them and he took a moment to order.  "Scotch, rocks."

"Sometimes you have to take a beat, Jack," Liz said gently.

Oh, everything suddenly came together.  Jack had wondered why Adam hadn't probed all that deeply about the execution.  Here was his answer.

"Adam called you, didn't he?"

"You saw a man die this morning.  You were instrumental in the process," Liz began seriously.

Enough of this.  He was willing to talk to Claire about it, if the subject came up, because it was bothering Claire and because he wanted to do what he could to help her out.  But he certainly didn't need to talk to anybody else about it, had no desire to, and even if he did he wouldn't pick a shrink colleague to bare his soul to.  "I won a case.  Justice was served.  I'm a happy man.  Now can we change the subject?" He turned to the waiter.  "Veal.  _Very_ rare," he looked at Liz as he said that last.

They continued their lunch, the meal made a little uncomfortable by Liz's obvious disappointment in him.  What the hell.  He wasn't put on earth to make a shrink's job easier, especially when he didn't need that shrink's services.  Thanks, but no thanks, Adam.  Adam should have known better than to sic Liz Olivet on him in the hopes of prying some kind of emotional response out of him.

Maybe Adam was feeling conflicted about what had happened, maybe Claire was, maybe Liz thought that a traumatic event had taken place this morning and it was her duty to help him through some kind of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but he was fine.

He left the restaurant feeling somewhat put off by this strange solicitude from Adam and Liz.  Feeling a little unenthusiastic about his afternoon's tasks, a little dissatisfied with how his day was proceeding.  He mentally reviewed his agenda for the rest of the day.  Nothing really interesting to do - administrivia, reports, no casework to keep it interesting.  A friend of his had asked him to help out with a study he was doing on the attitude of juries towards repeat sex offenders, and he'd been thinking of working on it this afternoon, but that was something that Claire had been doing with him and she'd had quite a few ideas that had made the work interesting and stimulating.  He didn't feel like plodding through it alone.

He didn't really feel like going back to work alone.

Out of the blue, he had a revolutionary thought.  Why not take just the day off?

Adam certainly wouldn't mind - in fact, Adam hadn't expected him to be at work at all today.

He stood on the street for a moment, a little off-balance mentally.  What would he do if he wasn't at work?

_Is that really all that goes on in your head, Jack?  Just work?  Cases?  Who to plead out, who to push to the wall?_

_What is it, people like you?  You bury yourself in your work.  I wonder, is it because you're hiding from your emotions or you have no emotions to hide from?_

This was silly, he should go back to work.  There was no reason for him to take the day off just because he'd been to an execution.

But he also didn't have anything to prove to anybody.  He didn't have to be at work.  He didn't have anything pressing going on.  And he didn't feel like going back to work, and he was tired, having been up most of the night driving.  So why not take the afternoon off?  Wander off and see where he ended up?   Maybe stop at a library, he could look up some of those figures for Clancy's sex offender study -

No, that was the same as going back to work.  Just in a different building.

He turned and went down a street.  This was an interesting thing about New York.  One minute you were among the classy restaurants and drinking establishments that he usually frequented, then you turned a corner and you were smack in the middle of working class pubs and diners.  This street could have been any place in the South Side of Chicago, where he grew up.  The bars probably looked the same inside, too.  This place, for example - The Green Table.  Three blocks away from the airy, pleasant-looking restaurant where he and Liz had just eaten.  But it looked, from the outside, like a drab little working man's pub, like the ones his dad used to frequent with his cop buddies.  Probably even had dartboards and pool tables.

On impulse, he opened the door and went inside.

**ooo000ooo**

**Author's Notes:** If anybody wants the actual script for Aftershock, e-mail me at

ciroccoj2002 at yahoo dot com

BTW, if anybody notices similarities between chapter 12 of Gypsum's "It's Always Something" and chapter 3 of "Aftershock: McCoy", please don't send either of us nasty e-mails ;)  Gypsum borrowed with permission.


	2. Aftershock

**CHAPTER 2: AFTERSHOCK**

"Between scotch and nothing, I'll take scotch.  Somebody said that once," Jack commented thoughtfully.  His second scotch so far at this bar, fourth in two hours counting the two he'd had at lunch.  He was starting to feel the slight relaxation and simultaneous slowing down of his thought processes that accompanied a few stiff drinks.

"Somebody with brains," the heavyset man sitting next to him at the bar replied.

"Somebody with an inadequate bar," Jack countered.  They were silent for a moment.

"It's a bitch," the heavyset man proclaimed.

"What is?"

"The boss, the wife, the kids... whatever."

Whatever.  Yeah.  "I'll stick with the whatever," Jack looked into his glass quietly.

"You some kinda smartass?" the heavy man asked after a beat.

"No, you?" Jack replied, and they looked at each other with semi-joking hostility, then simultaneously decided not to take offense at each other and grinned.

"Mike," the heavy man held out his hand and introduced himself.

"Jack," Jack returned his handshake firmly.

"Haven't seen you here before," Mike commented.

"My oversight." Jack paused for a moment.  "And you're absolutely right about it being a bitch."  Especially today, he thought but didn't say.

"Tell me about it," Mike agreed.  "I worked construction for thirty years.  Paid two mortgages in Queen's.  Three kids in school, one with a mouthful of new teeth.  You tell me," he pointed to his newspaper, "How come this Duchess o' York broad can't make ends meet?"

"It's un-American."

"And the little kid, he's gonna grow up to be king.  What the hell is that?"

"Get a job!" Jack said derisively.

"Damn straight, Mister!  My old man, he laid carpet for fifty years.  Died with a hammer in his hand and a nail between his teeth."

"Never had a vacation," Jack ventured.

"Not even Sundays."

"Eight in the morning till eight at night."

"Seven to nine," Mike went one better.

Yeah.  That's the way it used to be.  Nobody asked them to take a beat, nobody asked them if work was all they thought about.  If they buried themselves in work because they had no emotions, or whatever Liz had said.

"My old man he walked a beat for thirty-five years," Jack told Mike.

"Cop?  No crap."

"Noblest profession in the world."

"To cops," Mike raised his glass.  Jack clinked their glasses together.

"To working your butt off."

Working your butt off.  Nothing wrong with that.  There were many worse things you could do with your life than work, work, work.  Mickey Scott, for example, there was a man who didn't bury himself in work, and how did that help society, or help Scott himself?

"Who's working their butt off?" another heavyset man, somewhat younger, greeted Mike with a nod as he swung himself up to a barstool.

"My old man and his," Mike explained.  "Bud, Jack, Jack, Bud," he introduced them with a vague gesture.  Jack shook Bud's hand.

"Yeah?  What'd your old man do?" Bud asked Jack, signalling to the bartender for a drink.  The bartender, apparently familiar with Bud and his drinking habits, poured him a beer.

"Cop," Jack answered.

"No kidding," Bud answered, taking a swig of his beer.  "Good for him.  My cousin's a cop."

"Yeah?"

"Lower East Side, beat cop.  Man, you should hear his stories when he's had a few too many."

"Yeah?"

"Make your hair fall out.  Where'd your old man work?"

"Chicago, South Side."

"I got family in Chicago."

"No kidding.  What part?"

**ooo000ooo**

"So'd he ever kill anybody?" Mike asked a while later, as Bud took his turn at the dartboard.  Their desultory talk of Chicago had turned to talk of the merits of Cubs v. Mets and then to the merits of Chicago v. New York in terms of entertainment, safety, and general pleasantness of the people.  Mike had somehow segued them into a game of darts, and somehow they'd gotten back to talking about cops again.

"Thirty five years, what do you think?"

"Skag deserved it," Bud declared, finishing his turn at the dartboard.  Not bad.  Better than Mike, anyway.  Jack stepped up.

"A lot of people south side of Chicago deserved it," Jack concentrated on the board.  It had been a while, but it was good to see that some talents didn't disappear over time.

"Double or nothing," Bud challenged him as he finished his turn.

"It's my game!" Mike protested.

"You tapped out, remember?"

"That's why I'm gonna kick his butt this time."

"Maybe later.  I'm getting thirsty." Jack removed the darts from the dartboard - all in the centre.  Dad would've been pleased.  "On me."

"Five to two you been in a joint like this before," Bud said.

Yeah, many many many times.  This was almost exactly like the pubs his dad used to spend way too much time in.  The pubs he'd spent too much time in as a kid too.  That was something you didn't see so much any more, little kids in places like this.  There was something to be said for progress.  "Well, we had a board in the basement.  I was probably three when he first put a dart in my hand."  Good old Dad.  Real son of a bitch, but he had his good side too.  "He picked - he had these big thick hands, I sat in his hands like they were a chair and tossed darts till I fell asleep."

"My old man didn't do squat for me," Mike said.

"When I was about eight he took me down to 'is pub.  He put a sawbuck on the son and heir, you know, Sonny against anyone in the room?"

"And you whipped their butts," Bud guessed.

"Three... in the men's room door," he said with a flourish.  Bud and Mike laughed.  It was pretty funny, as an anecdote told decades later.  It hadn't been funny at all at the time.  Dad had been livid.  He'd shouted at Jack for hours for humiliating him in front of his friends, and tanned his hide, and locked him in the basement to practice until there was no way he would ever lose again.  Jack had hated darts with a passion for a long time.

"Eight years old, what do you want?" Mike said.

"I spent the next three weeks in the basement.  I haven't lost since.  In my family, losing was not an option."

Still wasn't.  Dad wasn't around any more, but there were some lessons he'd internalized.  He supposed Liz Olivet would find this all highly interesting.  Whatever.  She wasn't here right now, thank god.

**ooo000ooo**

Here was one thing he didn't miss about not spending time in these bars.  The music.  This was one of those pubs that time passed by, music-wise.  There might be a few patrons here who could hear The Clash, or the Stones, or The Doors, and feel nostalgic... but looking around, he rather doubted they'd be in the majority.  The few younger guys would probably roll their eyes at 'old guy' music.  The ones his age would think of the rich kids who protested against Vietnam while they went off and fought there.  And the older ones would think of snot-nosed college kids pissing on everything they held dear, defying everything and everyone with youthful bravado.

So Jack just tuned out the bad music and reflected that he should be grateful that at least they didn't have muzak versions of sixties tunes.  That really made him feel ready for retirement.  The first time he'd heard "Light My Fire" in a grocery store, he'd felt like throwing the bag of oranges he was holding at the speakers, if he could just find them.  He'd idly considered searching through municipal by-laws to see if there was any way of stopping the outrage.  Could there be something under noise pollution regulations?  Defacing public works of art?  Anything?

**ooo000ooo**

Mike wanted to play pool, so he and Bud ambled over and played a desultory game.  Jack just observed.  He wasn't very good at pool.  Dad wasn't really into it, so he'd never really been pushed into it.  Somebody had once explained to Jack that all pool is, is geometry.  Angles.  If you could do math, you could do pool.

Jack couldn't do math.

Well, that wasn't quite accurate - he could, he just wasn't very good at it.  He'd done his required math courses in high school, then avoided it like the plague.  It had been a horrible struggle, too.  He'd sought out a tutor and studied long hours, determined to not screw up his average and damage his chances for college scholarships.  It had been torture.  No easy grasp of concepts, like in the social sciences.  No confident knowledge that he would pass and get good grades even if he never cracked a book, but just needed to work a little in order to get the top mark in his class.  No, math had been a monumental pain in the ass from beginning to end.  He'd actually been afraid of failing.  Never even come close, but the fear had been there.  What would Dad have done if he'd actually failed?

Didn't matter that much.  His lack of mathematical talent, that is.  Didn't affect his choice of career - he'd been interested in the humanities, in law, from a very early age, and he'd simply avoided subjects in which he didn't have much native skill.

How much of that avoidance had been Dad?  How much of his natural inclination to avoid situations where he couldn't do well were part of what was ingrained in him from childhood by Dad?  How many incidents like the one with the darts had he endured before he'd internalized the lesson that losing was not an option?

You don't like to lose, do you? Claire - and others, including David Silverman this morning - had teased him on occasion.  Why?  What would it possibly matter if, for example, Mike beat the crap out of him in a stupid pool game?  He'd beat Mike at darts - beat Bud too, for that matter - and neither one of them seemed to mind.

Mike grinned, chalking up his cue, and teased him again.  "You sure?  Not even one game?"

"No, I don't play," Jack said again.

"C'mon..."

"No, I really don't play," Jack repeated.  He resisted the urge to make up some excuse like a bad back or something.  It was nobody's business why he didn't feel like playing pool.  It didn't have to have anything to do with a fear of losing.  It didn't have to have anything to do with his father.  Get out of my head, Liz Olivet.

While you're at it, you get out of my head too, Claire, with your "You don't like to lose."  Was that part of why his arguments with Claire had been so acrimonious when it came to the death penalty?  Not just because she was unreasonable and prone to confusing sentiment with ethics, but because he didn't like to lose?

Was that part of why he had sought the death penalty for Scott, because he knew that was the maximum penalty and anything less was losing and he didn't like to lose?

More scotch, he decided.  Having more scotch was a better idea than trying to play shrink with himself.

**ooo000ooo**

Lots more scotch.  Jack's head was beginning to swim a bit.  He had a pretty good tolerance, being a regular social drinker, but he wasn't used to quite this much.

"So you on the job too or what?" Bud asked later.  They kept coming back to the subject of cops, for some reason.  If his head were clearer, he would have found it intriguing.

"Nothing I woulda liked more."

"Oh, what's the problem - couldn't pass the physical?" Mike teased.

"You wanna step outside?" Mike grinned at him.  Jack shook his head.  "Cop was good enough for my old man.  But it wasn't good enough for his firstborn."

"So when are you running for president?" Mike asked.

"Don't kid yourself, if he was still around..." If Dad were still around he probably would have run for president.  The thrill of Executive Assistant District Attorney would've worn off Dad a long time ago.  What a pain in the ass.  Still, maybe if Dad hadn't been around, always pushing him, he wouldn't have made much of himself.  "Boy I wanted to wear the blues, walk a beat, carry a gun, be the toughest guy on the block, with his big, thick hands, but No he said.  You Jack, you are going to law school."

"You're a shyster?  Get out!" Bud was incredulous.  Jack stood up.  Oh.  Little wobbly, there.

"Res ipsa loquitur," he intoned solemnly, and Bud and Mike laughed.  "You shoulda seen him the day I graduated.  Chest was out to here.  He hung my diploma in his den, right above his bowling trophy."  Jack thought for a moment.  His diploma, which he'd earned through long hours of study and longer hours working to pay for tuition, because as much as Dad wanted to pay for everything and as many scholarships as Jack got, it wasn't quite enough... and it had hung in Dad's study until Dad died.

"He bowled too?" Mike asked, distracting him from the slight unfairness of his diploma's location.

"He could do everything.  He was a superman. You know what he said the day I gave him my diploma?  'Jack, my boy,' he said, 'some day we're gonna be a judge.'"

"Nothing like making the old man proud," said Bud.  Jack looked at him.  Proud?  Did he make Dad proud?  Superman hadn't said a lot about proud.  He'd said a lot about, Didn't I tell you you could do it?  You finally gonna stop whining to your mother about me pushing you too hard?  Push you too hard, my ass.

Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice.  He turned and looked at the TV.  What was Adam doing on TV?  Oh, of course, the press conference.  Right.

"Look at that.  I know that guy."

"You know a guy on the tube?" Mike asked blearily.

"Wisest man east of the Missouri.  Barkeep?" he called.  "A little volume here."

The bartender turned up the volume, and Jack was able to hear Adam's gravelly voice.

"...Scott was declared dead at 12:22 am Eastern Standard Time.  The cause of death was cardiac arrest caused by lethal injection."  Adam looked over the crowd of reporters asking him questions and picked one.

"What's going to happen to the body?" the man asked.

"The family has 24 hours to claim it.  If they don't, it'll be buried at State expense."  He pointed to another reporter.

"Mr. Schiff, isn't it true when you were in private practice you wrote an amicus brief against the death penalty?" she asked.

"That was twenty-five years ago," he answered her gruffly.

"And you've since changed your mind?"

"The people changed theirs.  Thank you." He left the podium and the newscast cut to a story on the city's sanitation crisis.

The people changed theirs.  Of course.  That was what Adam was supposed to do, uphold the will of the people and set aside his personal ideology.  Jack had read Adam's amicus brief, and had been amused to see how passionately Adam had argued against the death penalty in his youth.  Imagining Adam as an idealistic young man - it was a humorous mental exercise.

It occurred to him that Claire would probably think that what Adam had said was appalling.  If she were here, she would probably go on about how awful it was that Adam could toss aside his own words, just like that, for political expediency.  She'd probably use that quote she liked so much, "The right thing is not always the popular thing and the popular thing is not always the right thing."  As a matter of fact, he'd used that quote with her once, god only knew why, and she'd tossed it back at him too many times to count.  If she were here, he'd probably hear it again.

But Claire wasn't here.  Actually, where the hell was Claire?  He'd left her a message a while ago - hours ago, it seemed - telling her he'd be taking the rest of the day off, asking her to page him.  He checked - yes, his pager was on.  And it had been a few hours ago, he realized as he checked his watch.  Where the hell was she?

What the hell.  He ordered another scotch.

**ooo000ooo**

Hours later.  His head was swimming with alcohol.  This was a lot like how his dad used to while the time away on his days off - shooting the breeze in a pub, drink after drink after drink, not to get drunk, not to forget, just because he was at a bar and this was what you did at a bar.

Of course, as it happened, when you did that, you did end up getting very drunk and forgetting quite a bit.  But that was just a side effect, not the goal of the exercise.

This was probably a lot like the bar Mickey Scott had gone to the day he'd committed the deed that got him put away.  Incredible, now, to remember that he'd finished bashing that woman's head in with a tire iron, dropped the pipe, and just ambled off, leaving their battered cars and her battered body behind.  Shirt still untucked from where he'd undone his clothes in order to rape her.  Her body still warm, skirt still up over her face, dead and bleeding out.  "No thrill" the ME had called the rape - meaning he hadn't ejaculated inside her.  Jack had been grimly amused at that - the last time that bastard would ever have sex with another person, and he hadn't even finished the act.

And then the sonofabitch had just walked off to a bar and not one of the people who'd watched had stopped him.

To their (extremely minor) credit, one of them had called 911 after it was way too late to do Adele Saunders any good, and three had grown consciences and stayed at the scene, providing the cops with a description of Mickey Scott and the events that had taken place and a general idea of the direction he'd taken off.  And they'd testified later during the trial.

Three fine upstanding citizens who didn't have the presence of mind or moral backbone to interfere or even call for help while they watched a man brutally rape a woman and murder her in broad daylight, but who at least didn't slink away like the rest of the cowardly miserable sub humans who watched the show that day.

Jack shook his head, making himself slightly dizzy, banishing those unpleasant images from his mind.  Yuck.  Adele Saunders' death was the last thing he wanted to think about right now.  That case was over and done, done, done.  Besides, Mike was talking and it was rude to ignore somebody who was talking.  Especially somebody who was talking about... his mother?

"What I'm saying is, she was a saint."  Jack chuckled.  From the little bits and pieces of Mike's rambling description that Jack had registered, the heavyset man did consider his mother to be some sort of goddess.  It was funny.  Jack's own mother... she was OK, but he didn't revere her like Mike seemed to revere his mother.  "You laughing at my old lady?"

"What kind of person would do a thing like that?  No, I was thinking, my mom, she was all right, she did 'er best.  She made corn beef and cabbage like nobody.  She jus' made too much of it."  He and Mike shared a laugh.  "But it was all my dad ever wanted.  You'd say, come on Dad, we're going out for a hun'red buck t-bones on me.  He'd rather stay home, watch 'is ball game, eat 'is corned beef."  Bastard.  Set in his ways.  No way to impress him, even after he'd started making good money.

"Routine's good," Mike pointed out blearily.  "Find something you like, don't screw with it."

"That's what he said.  And if anybody messed it up, he had these big thick hands."  Big hands.  Son of a bitch.  Suddenly Jack was tired of glossing over his father's less savoury personal traits.  "Sometimes my mother had to lock herself in the basement," he told Mike.

"Son of a bitch hit her?" Mike's face instantly became heavy with compassion.

Yeah.  Son of a bitch.  Good old Dad.  Superman, he could do everything.  Including make his life, and his mother's life, and his sister's life, miserable.  Until the day he died.  A son of a bitch to the very end, just like Mickey Scott.

"Ten years.  I'm still scared o' those hands."  A whole childhood spent in admiration and fear of those hands.  Even into adulthood.  He was a grown man now, and he wasn't afraid of anyone.  If anything, other people, even tough cons like Scott, feared him, because they might be tough but he had the power of the law behind him, and he could hurt them worse than they could hurt him.  He could even get them killed.

And it didn't make a damn difference, because as fearless as he was around killers and rapists and other thugs and violent felons, when faced with his own father or even the memory of his father, he reverted back to being a scared little boy.  Hate and love and hero-worship and repugnance and fear and envy, all tied into a knot so tight you couldn't pull the strands apart.

The knot was still there.  Years after the man died.  Still there.

"He smoked like a chimney.  Cancer."  Jack's eyes unfocussed and he thought back to John McCoy Sr.'s final days, speaking to himself.  "He lay there in that hospital room with tubes coming out of 'is arms.  They pumped him full of morphine so he wouldn't know how much he hurt.  He didn't know where he was."  What a way to end your life.  Strapped down, all your toughness and ferocity taken from you, reduced to total powerlessness, helplessly awaiting your death.  "This tough... he jus' lay there.  He was breathing... and then he was gone."

He felt his eyes fill with tears.  Hell of a way to die.  For anybody.  Even a son of a bitch like Dad.  Even a son of a bitch like Scott.

Fuck, where did that come from.  He wiped his eyes.  "I dunno why I'm talking about this, I never talk about this.  Let's play darts," he abruptly got up from the barstool.

**ooo000ooo**

He should probably call Claire again, he thought hazily hours later.  He'd started alternating scotches with soda water, and kept going between soused and merely tipsy.  Right now, he was somewhat lucid.  Maybe.  He should call Claire, figure out where the hell she was, see if they could get together, maybe later.

Oh, and go to the washroom, too.  That was the other problem with drinking like a fish.  What goes up must come down and what goes in must go through, he thought, chuckling to himself as he punched in Claire's home number.

Damn.  Not there.  Another message left there for Her Highness to ignore.  Wait, she was probably wearing her pager too, she usually did when she was out of the office.  Had he tried her pager yet today?  Didn't remember.  OK, there was the beep.

"Hi Claire, I jus' left a message for you at home but I guess yer not there." Or maybe you're ignoring me.  "I been leavin' messages for a while now, it would be really nice if you answered one of 'em.  Gimme a call, I 'ave my pager on, I'm at a bar called - hey, what's this place called?" he asked a nearby patron.

"The Green Table," she supplied.  Looked a little tipsy herself.

"Oh, it's called The Green Table," he looked back at the woman, "Where is it?"

"Corner a twelf'n'thirdy-six," she slurred.

"An' it's on the corner of 12th and 36th," he finished into the phone, hanging up.  Washroom.  And no more scotch for a while.  He wove his way into the washroom.

**ooo000ooo**

"Uh, seat's taken.  Buddy's on the phone," Mike was telling somebody as he made his way back to the barstool.  Mike moved and Jack grinned as he saw who was there.  Small world.

"This your buddy?" the man asked Mike, indicating Jack.

"Like brothers," Mike joked.

"Detective Briscoe."

"Counsellor."

"Out of all the gin joints in all the world, etc. etc. etc," he sat himself down, then looked at Briscoe a bit more closely.  "Is it my imagination or are you not exactly thrilled to see me?"

"Oh it's just that I thought that the Constitution provided for the separation of work and play," Briscoe replied with a slightly forced smile.

"That's funny.  He's funny," Jack told Mike.  "No work here, Detective.  This is play, pure and simple, I bet you didn't think I had it in me."  What is it with people like you? Liz had asked him.  What did she know.

"To tell you the truth I never thought about it," Briscoe chuckled, sitting himself at the bar stool, apparently deciding not to hold it against Jack that he was here at this bar.  For whatever reason he'd seemed a bit put off to see him here.  Whatever.  Briscoe was a decent guy.

"Barkeep, a drink for my friend here," Jack said expansively.

"Yeah, club soda with lime."

"Make it a double, on me."

"Sure you uh, haven't had enough already?"

Excuse me?  That was funny.  Lennie Briscoe, who Jack had heard could put away his own weight in vodkas a few years back, letting Jack know he'd had a bit too much.  "This is what it's all about.  Coupla drinks, with a coupla guys, coupla hours..."

**ooo000ooo**

Maybe Briscoe'd had a point about having had enough already, Jack thought sluggishly about an hour or so later.  He vaguely remembered thinking to himself just before Briscoe showed up that maybe he better stick to soda water himself, but then something had made him figure what the hell.  There was poor Briscoe, on a day like today, still confined to frigging soda water and lime.  Jack was lucky enough never to have crossed the line between social drinker and alcoholic, and he knew damn well, from Dear Old Dad no less, where that line lay, 'cause Dad had gone waaay past it and set up shop on the other side.  Mean drunk, too.  Violent, big thug.  Big thick hands.

So Jack had continued to drink, and now he was really really really feeling it.  Goddamn.

And you know what?  He was sick of this place.  Bud had stumbled home hours ago, Mike was a nice guy, Briscoe wasn't too bad either outside of work, but he'd been here most of the day and he was gonna go home.  Forget Claire, Little Miss Sensitive Ethics.  He'd waited for her for hours.

Had he?  What the hell time was it?  He tried to check, to no avail.  Too drunk to really feel like figuring out what the big hand and the little hand were trying to tell him.  He showed Briscoe his watch.

"What does that say?"

"Says she isn't coming, whoever she is."

"What makes you think-"

"Twenty-five years on the force."  Fine.  Jack stood up.  "At least she's Irish," Briscoe said in a humorous tone.  Jack looked up at him.  Irish?

Hey, Briscoe.  Ya figured it out.  What the hell.  Probably everybody who knew them also knew that they were sleeping together, what with his rep.  It wasn't terribly professional, it bothered Adam to no end, it might bother Claire to know even people like Briscoe knew, but what the hell.  Didn't bother him any.  Especially not today.  Jack suddenly lost his footing and had to catch himself on the back of the barstool.  Briscoe put out a hand to steady him.

"Hey, hey, you know what?  Maybe I better take you home."

"I don't believe there's any law against taking a cab while intoxicated," Jack put on his suit jacket.  "Been a good day, hasn't it, Detective?"

"For who?"

Fuck that, Briscoe.  Jack had heard from Claire that Lennie Briscoe, of all people, wasn't too sure about the execution either, but Jack really didn't want to get into a discussion of that right now.  He finished putting on his outer jacket.

"Good guys pulled through, bottom o' the ninth."  That was good enough for him.  He gave Mike a high five and started to leave, then turned around and smiled at Briscoe.  "And to hell with 'er."

**ooo000ooo**

To hell with her.

To hell.  With her.  He'd spent too much of today thinking about ADA Claire Kincaid.  To hell with her.  She didn't even have the decency to give him a call and let him know she'd gotten his messages.

This is why it's not good idea to sleep with your assistants, Jack.  That voice in his head sounded a hell of a lot like Adam Schiff.

Because when it goes sour, it really goes sour.  And then you end up spending the day getting drunk and waiting around, instead of working.  And you end up wandering the streets late at night, trying to decide whether you want to sober up or just pick up some more booze and drink in the privacy of your own home instead of at a bar that reminds you just a little too much of two major sonsabitches, Mickey Scott and your own Daddy Dearest.

He shoulda gone back to work this afternoon.  He shoulda just gone back to work, to hell with Liz Olivet, to hell with Claire, to hell with Adam, to hell with Mickey Scott, he should not have given that bastard the honour of making Jack McCoy miss a day of work just because he breathed his last on this particular day.  He shoulda been at work polishing up the Kirksen closing - no, calling Kirksen's lawyer, first of all, to let him know the deal was off the table, then polishing off the Kirksen closing.

What was the Kirksen case about again?  Was that the woman who murdered her husband because he was hitting her?  No, that was one of the plea bargains he did for Claire today, Simsen or something.  Simon.  Simenko.  God, they were all the same.

The plea bargain he did for Claire because he was trying to be understanding, he was trying to help her out, but she didn't even have the courtesy to call him back.

Kirksen.  Tomorrow was the end of the case.  Unless they'd called some time today to say they were taking the deal.  Damn, they would have left a message at the office, and it was too god damn late now to retrieve it.  And he was too god damn drunk now to understand it anyway.  He better go in early tomorrow morning.

He was gonna have a hell of a hangover tomorrow morning.

He decided to try to walk it off.

**ooo000ooo**

Who knew how much later.  Getting tired of wandering.  Brain starting to realize that what he was doing was probably not wise - wandering about the streets of New York City late at night while obviously intoxicated wasn't the smartest thing a guy could do.

But going home was.  Going home and drinking until he passed out.  That was plenty smart.  With the clearing of his head had come some unpleasant thoughts, and it was too late now to do anything about them, and he was still too drunk to get anything useful done in terms of work, so he might as well go home and drink himself to sleep.

He hadn't gone on one of these benders in a long time, however much Claire might tease him about his drinking habits.

Claire again.  God damn.

**ooo000ooo**

Finally.  Keys... where the hell were his keys.  OK.  Keys.  It was so tough, even once you found your keys, to put them where they belonged - to figure out which one to use, first of all, and then get it into that tiny, tiny little hole in the door.

Should he ask one of his neighbours for help?

Bad idea.  Waking up the neighbours in the middle of the night to help him into his apartment.

Oh, goody.  It went in.  He stumbled into his dark apartment, barely catching himself on the wall and saving himself from an undignified sprawl onto the floor.

Oops, good thing he saved the bottle too, he thought to himself humorously.  He'd somehow managed to buy more alcohol despite his lamentable condition; which probably wasn't right, liquor store clerks were not supposed to sell more booze to people as drunk as him.  Maybe tomorrow he'd go back and let them know he was gonna charge them with... something.  He'd have to look it up.

OK.  Bottle's here, glasses... ah, why bother with glasses?

Because this is a bottle of scotch, not beer.  You'd have to get even more plastered than this before swigging scotch from a bottle became a good idea.

Let's get to it, then, he thought to himself cheerfully as he plunked a tumbler down on the little table next to the couch and flipped on the TV, impressing himself that he neither set the glass down on the floor by accident nor tried to turn on the TV with the VCR remote instead.  Not that drunk after all.

Let's rectify this situation, shall we?  He poured himself a glass and settled back to watch something.  Who knew what.  Some sitcom or something.  Not the news.

In fact, this show was just fine.  It was some sort of cartoon that his nephew really liked, and his sister didn't think was appropriate for his age.  The Simmons or something.

Simmons!  That was the name of the woman who murdered her husband because he was allegedly beating her.

He downed the scotch.

**ooo000ooo**

OK, sitcom all done.  He hadn't really understood all of it, but it sure was funny.  And another glass had joined the first, which would make it... how many today?

About ten times what he usually drank, the way his head felt.  And why?

Well, so many reasons.  The number one reason being woman trouble.  What a cliché, getting drunk over a woman.  Jack hated being a cliché.  He stumbled over to the phone and placed a call.  Last one of the day.  If she wanted to make amends, fine, if not, that was fine by him too.  She could damn well transfer to somebody else's office, become somebody else's assistant.

God damn.  Nobody picking up.  Miss Sensitivity wasn't being so damn sensitive, was she?  Not to him, anyway.  To hell with her.  He'd confront her on it tomorrow, he was sick of waiting for her today.

He left a message, vaguely aware that it was probably not a good idea to leave a message with this level of intoxication, hung up, and returned to the couch.

**ooo000ooo**

WHA?!

Something was making an unbelievable racket.  What a horrible way to wake up.

The phone.

His machine picked up and he thought of going to the phone to get it before whoever it was left a message, but rapidly became aware that what he was feeling within his stomach and his head was starting to translate into an urgent need to...

He stumbled to the washroom and reached the toilet just in time.

Whoa.  That hadn't happened in a very, very long time, he thought as he finally finished heaving.  How completely unpleasant.

He settled his back against the washroom wall.  Pounding headache.  Mouth tasted like death.

Ugh.

This was disgusting.  He flushed, then rinsed out his mouth in the sink.  How repulsive.  He stripped his clothes off, revolted by the bar smell of alcohol and smoke, the feel of clothing that had been on his body for over twenty-four hours.  Rubbed his jaw and felt stubble.

Shower.  A shower would make all the difference.  He hoped.

Twenty-five minutes later, he came out of the shower, feeling much refreshed.  Still somewhat tipsy, still hung over, but at least hygienic.

Blinking red light on the answering machine.  Right, the message that had woken him up from a drunken slumber.  He looked at the clock: 12:45am.  Who would call at this hour?  No, they hadn't called at this hour, they'd called about half an hour ago.  Maybe that was Claire.  He approached the machine, realizing that part of him felt like erasing the message without even listening to it.

Maybe he should just erase it.

Maybe that was childish.

He pressed the button on the machine.


	3. Accident

**CHAPTER 3: ACCIDENT**

"McCoy, this is Rey Curtis," the young detective's calm voice floated out of Jack's answering machine.  "I just got a call from Lennie Briscoe.  He and Claire were in a car accident.  They're at St. Vincent's.  Give me a call at 555-0957 as soon as you get this message, I'll fill you in on what I know."

Jack picked up the phone, mildly alarmed.  He dialed the number Curtis had left on his machine.

"Curtis."

"Detective Curtis.  What's this about an accident?" he asked.

"I can't tell you much more than what I said on your machine," Curtis answered.  "Claire's in the OR right now.  You may want to come down here."  Come down here?  The OR?  Jack drew in his breath.  The message had sounded like it was a minor thing - Briscoe had been unharmed enough to call Curtis, so it couldn't have been that bad.  What was Claire doing in the OR?

Jack registered that Curtis was still speaking, and replayed what he'd just said.  Something about Claire's mother having had a message left on her machine.  "Do you know if there's any other way to reach her?" Curtis was asking.

"Yes," he answered and hung up.

Somebody couldn't reach Claire's mother.  Who?  The hospital, probably.  Why would the hospital be calling Claire's mother?

Because her mother was Claire's next of kin.

Feeling his head rapidly clearing of the alcohol haze, Jack picked up his phone book.  Claire's mother had two numbers, one under Linda Kincaid.  Jack couldn't remember why right now.  That was probably the number listed in Claire's documents.

Geller, that was her new married name.  There it was, Geller, M&L, 555-8723.  He dialed.

Shit.  What was he going to say?

"Hello?" a man's voice on the phone.  Mac.  Claire's stepfather.  Fascinating man, Jack recalled vaguely, remembering the one time he'd had dinner with Claire's parents about six months ago.

"Mac, it's Jack McCoy," he was speaking before really knowing what he was going to say.  "I just got a call, it seems Claire's been in some sort of accident.  She's at St. Vincent's-"

"Good Lord!" Mac exclaimed, "Is she all right?"

"I don't really know.  All I know is that she's in the OR right now," Mac drew in his breath sharply and Jack immediately mentally kicked himself for having said that - that sounded rather alarming, and she'd probably just broken her leg or something.  He should've just said she was at the hospital, that would have been enough.  Damn, he was still too drunk to think clearly.  "She's probably just fine," he reassured Mac, "but I think you and Linda should go to the hospital anyway."

"Yes, of course.  We'll meet you there," Mac hung up.

**ooo000ooo**

He entered St. Vincent's Emergency, looked around, heard somebody calling him.

"McCoy.  Over here," Curtis was waving him over to where he was sitting with Briscoe.

"Anything?" he asked Curtis.

"No.  No news, she's still in the OR.  Did you get a hold of her parents?"

"Yeah.  They're on their way."  He looked down at Briscoe.  Briscoe seemed completely unhurt.  The only sign that he'd been in an accident was the hospital bracelet around his wrist.  He looked disheveled and tired, slumped in his chair, but then again, Jack knew he himself probably looked somewhat off too.  He suddenly peered closer at Briscoe.  Briscoe didn't just look tired, he looked... he looked like maybe he'd had a few drinks.  No, that couldn't be.  "Detective Briscoe?"

"Yeah," Briscoe looked up at him slowly.

"Are you all right?"

"Fit as a fiddle.  Nothing wrong with me," he answered.  With a slight slur to his words.  Jack had left him behind at the bar, totally sober, of course, since Briscoe was a recovering alcoholic.  But now... he glanced at Curtis questioningly.  Curtis hesitated for a split second, then nodded almost imperceptibly at his silent question.  Shit.  Briscoe had fallen off the wagon.

"What happened?" he asked Briscoe, dismissing that for now.  First get the facts of the event.

"Claire came to the bar.  You were gone.  She was givin' me a ride home and some SOB rammed into us at an intersection," Briscoe droned automatically.

All right, so there was a guilty party.  "Did they get the driver?"

"Yeah."

Good, the prosecutor in him was satisfied.  At least whoever did this didn't just get away scot-free.  All right.

Well.

That was that.

What else could he do now?

Nothing but hurry up and wait.  He sat down, suddenly feeling a bit at loose ends.  There was a brief silence, then he found himself saying, almost to himself, "She came... I thought she just decided to ignore me.  I was paging her all day."

**ooo000ooo**

Linda and Mac were here.  He had spent the last twenty minutes slowly coming to terms with what was going on, and one of the things he'd realized fairly quickly was that Briscoe hadn't said anything reassuring about Claire's condition.  He hadn't said anything alarming either, but... even in his current state, Jack had easily figured out that if Claire were just in the OR with a broken leg, Briscoe would have said so.  And he wouldn't be looking the way he looked right now.  Curtis looked somber as well, but that didn't really mean anything; Curtis always looked somber.

He hadn't wanted to ask, though.  Hadn't wanted his fears confirmed.  Besides, it was quite possible that Briscoe and Curtis wouldn't be able to tell him anything; the hospital might not have released any information to them since they weren't family.

He stood, trying to think of what to say to Linda and Mac as they approached, Linda scared out of her wits and Mac reasonably composed.

"Where is she?  Do you know anything?" Linda asked him, her voice panicky.

"No.  Nothing.  She's still in the OR."

"How is she?  Why is she in the OR?"  Jack turned to Briscoe and Curtis.  Curtis cleared his throat and stood up slowly.

"I asked the nurse at the front... she said she couldn't really tell me much more than she's in the OR with a head injury."

Jack looked at him more closely as Linda gasped.  Curtis hadn't said that when he'd come in, and it looked like he didn't want to say it now.  Briscoe was looking away, lips pressed together, and Jack got the feeling that the two of them knew more than they were letting on.  That Claire's condition was very severe and they just didn't want to scare the rest of them.

"I'm sorry, Linda, Mac, these are Detectives Curtis and Briscoe," Jack said automatically, taking refuge in standard social script to avoid thinking about Claire for the moment, "They work with Claire and myself.  Detective Briscoe was in the car with Claire."

"What happened?" Linda asked Briscoe anxiously.  He started to stand and Curtis put a hand on his shoulder, gently keeping him in his chair.

"Lennie, don't stand up," he said quietly, and turned to Linda.  "Claire was driving Lennie home and a drunk driver crashed into them at an intersection.  The other driver was also brought in to the hospital.  Lennie's staying for observation, to make sure he's OK."

"Are you hurt?"

"No.  I'm fine," Briscoe said, relatively clearly.

"If you want, I can try to see if there's been any progress," Jack suggested.

"We'll come with you," Mac said, "They may release more information to Linda than to anybody else."

**ooo000ooo**

No, they didn't.  Severe head trauma, she's in the OR, we'll let you know as soon as we know.

We'll let you know.

He didn't want to know.

Well, he did, but as long as they were waiting here, there was still hope that she would be just fine.  And he had a sinking feeling that at the end of this wait, "just fine" wouldn't be the way the doctors would describe Claire.

How much did he have to drink? he wondered out of the blue.  Funny, he didn't feel drunk.  He must still be, but he really didn't feel that way.  Probably too upset to really be drunk.

So what was there to do?  Nothing much, really.  This wasn't a regular situation where you have to wait around for something and you start chatting to pass away the time.  Briscoe was still drunk, Curtis wasn't a great conversationalist and seemed worried about his partner as well as Claire, and he, Linda and Mac were in no shape to talk about the weather or anything else inconsequential.

But not talking about anything really made you aware of what you were doing here, what you were waiting for.

Magazines.  There were a few magazines lying around.  He idly picked through the Vogues and Field and Streams and found a Newsweek from about two months back.

Some Nixon tapes were finally being made public.  That was interesting, mildly, but in reality probably it would only have an impact on historians.

Reviews of some books.  None of which he'd even heard about, let alone read.  Didn't recognize the authors, either.

Some vacationer had fallen off a Carnival Cruise line ship and swum to safety.

"Jack!"  He looked up, Linda's voice piercing through whatever he'd been reading.

"I'm sorry, what?" she was looking at him just like Claire when she had to repeat herself to get his attention.  Funny, he hadn't noticed until just now how much Claire resembled her mother, but there it was, the same expression on a different face.  It was the eyes - the same dark eyes.

"Mac is going to get some coffee, do you want any?" she repeated slowly.

"Oh - no, uh, no thanks," he told Mac, and Mac nodded and walked off.  Jack looked back down at the magazine... what had he been reading about?  Nothing looked even remotely familiar.  A review of a book, a story about a cruise ship, a new album put out by some band.  None of it struck a bell.  He flipped through some more, trying not to think of Claire's eyes in Linda's face.  Linda's voice, so different from Claire's but giving certain words exactly the same inflection.

They were so different, Claire and her mother.  Other than both being petite, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, they were so very different.  Linda might have Claire's eyes - or was that the other way around - but their personalities couldn't have been more dissimilar.  Jack had only met Linda Geller once, but at the time he had been highly amused by the contrast between herself and Claire.

Meeting the parents for dinner.  Such a regular "committed couple" thing to do, so unlike the way he and Claire normally behaved.  Of course, he wasn't introduced as 'this is my boyfriend Jack' - even the word 'boyfriend' conjured up images of junior high school in Jack's mind - just 'this is Jack'.

How did she talk about him to her parents?  Did she talk about him to her parents?

What the hell was he to her?  They hadn't really talked about it - in part because at work, where they spent most of their waking hours, they already had defined roles and what they were doing outside of those defined roles wasn't really supposed to happen anyway, so putting a label on it didn't make much sense.

That dinner had been a little awkward at first.  They had spent the first little while making small talk, then he and Mac had launched into a discussion of the pros and cons of reciprocal discovery and things had gotten interesting.  They had debated back and forth, Claire joining in with a few comments, but seeming strangely reticent.  Linda said practically nothing.

At one point, as Jack listened to Mac explaining away some legal point, he realized that Linda had absolutely no idea what was going on - that she was smiling and nodding in the wrong places.  That Mac didn't even bother to look at her to include her in the conversation.  It occurred to him to wonder why a man like Mac Geller, so brilliant and interesting, would be married to a woman like Linda.  He couldn't imagine it.  What would be the point of spending vast amounts of time with a woman who had nothing in common with you, with whom you couldn't discuss the subjects that interested you the most?

Jack had tried to include Claire in the conversation, encountered that odd reticence again.  He'd asked her about it later.

"Why didn't you say anything?  Too shy to talk in front of your old professor?"

"Because my mother wasn't saying anything, Jack.  I didn't want her to feel completely left out."

That hadn't even occurred to Jack.  He'd felt sorry for Mac, since the man obviously couldn't share his interests with his wife as he shared interests with Claire, but it hadn't really occurred to him to think about Claire's mother, stuck smiling vacantly while her husband went off on philosophical legal tangents.

Mac came back and gave Curtis and Briscoe their coffees, sat down next to Linda.  Linda slowly leaned against him, closing her eyes, and he put his arm around her shoulder.  Reached up and absently touched one of her dangling earrings lightly, making it swing.  She just as absently reached up and stilled the earring, caught his hand, tugged it towards her, kissed his fingers, let go.  It was done so quickly, so automatically.  So obviously a well-worn ritual between them.  It probably started as a joke or something, and had over time become thoughtless habit.

Like the way that Claire automatically moved his legs out of the way from the couch when he was lying down, working on something, and sat herself down with his feet in her lap, never breaking her narrative.  Like the way that she knew precisely which piece of evidence to hand him in the courtroom, when he paused for a moment in the middle of cross-examinations.  Like the way he never asked what she wanted to order out any more - it was always won ton soup, two spring rolls, sweet and sour chicken balls, mixed veggie rice and shredded beef.  From Gow's.

The things that unexpectedly bring a stab of abject fear to your heart.  Shredded beef from Gow's, wondering when you'll be able to order it for her again.  If you'll ever be able to order it for her again.

No, of course he'd be able to.  What kind of thinking was that?  It just might be a while, that was all.

**ooo000ooo**

Another magazine.

Explosion at a steel mine.  Big one.  Evidence of negligence, said the story.  Long history of safety code violations.  Probably a civil suit in the works for that one, if not criminal.

The Menendez brothers were finally being sentenced, all their appeals exhausted.  That was mildly interesting.  Didn't Ben Stone have a case remarkably similar to that one a few years back?  Was that around when he and Diana were working the Dillard case and he was trying to make EADA?  He had no idea whatsoever.  He wondered what the sentence in Stone's case had been, whether it was at all comparable to the Menendez case.  And if not, why the difference.

Another magazine.  Movie review of Dangerous Minds, with Michelle Pfeiffer - wait, that came out last year, didn't it?  He checked the date on the front of the magazine.  Yes.  Because there was a review for Dead Man Walking, also from last year.  He hadn't seen it.  About the death penalty.  What would Claire have thought about it?

What did Claire think of the Menendez case?  And what would she think of the sentencing?  He'd have to tell her about it when - all of a sudden he realized he didn't remember what he'd just read, what the sentence had been.

Did it matter?  Would he be able to tell Claire about it?

She'd been in all this time.  He checked his watch.  She'd come in around midnight, and it was now 2am.

Severe head trauma.  Even if she lived, this was going to be major.  No sleepless night at the hospital followed by Oh, she's all right, go back to work tomorrow and don't forget to bring her flowers when you come visit, temporarily reassign her work to somebody else for a couple of days until she's good to come back.

No movie rental this Friday.  No finishing off the Kirksen case together.  They'd be lucky if they managed to take their time off together this summer in anything like the way they'd planned.

During Diana Hawthorne's trial, her attorney had asked how he and Diana celebrated after they won the Dillard case and he made EADA.  He'd replied, "I took her to Ireland."

After the trial was over and Diana disbarred, Claire had teased him, "You never took me to Ireland, Jack."

"So now's the perfect time," he'd said.  But she wanted to go to Tuscany instead, so they had taken two whole weeks together.  Well, she'd taken two weeks - he'd had a last-minute emergency because the Stenson case had fallen through - and he'd had to send her ahead and join her three days later.  Other than that, it had gone well.  They'd promised each other they'd go to Ireland this summer, probably in July or August, if they could somehow coordinate their schedules.

He thought of their schedules.  The cases they were working on together.  Would she be able to work any of them?  Even the ones in the most preliminary stages?  Would he be able to tell her that he got all her plea bargains done, that she was right about David Silverman caving on Mandelay?

And what about Kirksen?  What should he do with that case, what should he do with Glacken and the Gomez plea bargain tomorrow?

What was he going to tell Adam?

This threw everything off track.  Everything was changed.  He couldn't just stay in the hospital tonight and show up for work tomorrow.

Or if he did, it would only be because she was gone and there was nothing to be done except reassign her cases and work around her absence.

No, that wouldn't happen.  It couldn't.

God, he hoped he wouldn't be back at work any time soon.  He'd rather take a long time off, have all his cases go to hell, if that meant that she was still here.

Stop thinking about it.  There was no point in obsessing over it until he had more facts.  He looked at the magazine he was holding, realizing that none of it made any sense.  It was all gibberish.  There was one story that had to do with a sanitation company-

"Did you get a statement from the garbage collector in the Frunt case?" he suddenly asked Curtis, remembering something that had popped up in that file earlier today - no, that was yesterday, they were already into the wee hours of another day.

"No, not yet.  It was our day off yesterday," Curtis replied.  "We were gonna go talk to him tomorrow."

"Don't worry about it, it's not that important," he replied.

Useless.  What would the garbage collector have to add to the case?

His mind felt like sludge.  Coffee might make it better.

**ooo000ooo**

"I wish she'd come to dinner more often," Linda said softly.  Mac put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her in close.  How many times had he held Claire like that?  Not very many.  They didn't tend to show much physical affection unless they were at each other's apartments, which didn't happen all that often.  In public, they tended to maintain professional decorum.  Not that that fooled anybody.  Adam knew, most of the people at Hogan Place knew - hell, from what Briscoe had said earlier today - no, last night - even Briscoe knew.

Yet there was Mac, comforting Linda unselfconsciously while they all waited for word on her daughter.  Jack gazed at them, trying to think of what to say.  She'll be OK?  No, she wasn't going to be OK.  They were all coming to that realization.  Somehow the knowledge had seeped through from Briscoe, the only one of them who had actually seen her injuries, to the rest of them.  Claire wasn't going to be OK.  She wasn't going to be going to dinner at Linda's house any time soon.  If ever.

I'm sure she wishes she could come for dinner more often too?  No, that was a lie.  Claire wasn't comfortable around her mother.  She tended to put off social engagements to see her, and from the one dinner Jack had attended at her mother's place, he could see why.

Just hope for the best?  No, that was both trite and awful.  Best to just keep his mouth shut.  He had nothing to say that would comfort Linda, and he knew it had nothing to do with a brain sluggish from Scotch.  The alcohol was pretty much out of his system, as far as his mental processes were concerned.  Hell, even Briscoe looked like he'd sobered up, and Briscoe had been far drunker than he when he first got to the hospital.

He cleared his throat and picked up another magazine.  Looked vaguely familiar.  Flipped it open to some story about the Menendez brothers.

"Anybody want another coffee?" Briscoe asked, standing up.  Speech fairly clear.  Jack and Linda shook their heads no, Mac nodded yes.  "Rey?"

"I'll come with you," Curtis stood too, and they left for the coffee machine.  Jack spared a brief thought for Briscoe as he watched them leave.  Lennie Briscoe, on the wagon for four years... tumbling right off.  Why today, of all days?  Had it been because of the execution?  And why did he have to pick the bar that Jack himself was in, and why did he have to be there when Claire came to get him... and why couldn't he himself have waited just a little longer for her?

He closed his eyes.  Why couldn't he have waited?  Why couldn't he have called her one more time?

To hell with her.

The last thing he'd said about her.  The last thing he'd felt about her.  To hell with her.

Don't think about that.  He made himself read through another magazine.

**ooo000ooo**

A doctor came by and gave Briscoe a perfunctory examination, murmuring to him quietly.  It looked, from Briscoe's disinterested nods, that he was being told that he was fine.  And told, and told, and told, with all the gibberish and jargon that professionals use even when the people they're talking to really have no interest in hearing it - they just want the bottom line.  Briscoe wasn't listening.

One of the reasons he'd gone into prosecution instead of defense.  Because he usually didn't have to explain to a client, in painstaking detail, facts and issues that the client didn't want to hear.  Didn't have to watch the client's eyes glaze over as they waited for the punchline: will the jury find me guilty?  Are the charges dismissed?  Is the gun admissible?

At some point during the night, some doctor was probably going to come and talk to Linda the same way.  And Linda wouldn't hear any of it.  He wouldn't hear any of it either.  They would just want to know the bottom line: is she alive?  Is she going to be all right?

**ooo000ooo**

Briscoe was still there, as was Curtis.  Jack had expected them to stay only as long as it took for the doctor to pronounce Briscoe fit to go, but they didn't look like they were going anywhere.  They had conversed in low voices for a few minutes after the doctor had gone, and Jack had caught a low, "Can't leave now," from Briscoe.  No protest from his young partner.

After their brief discussion, Curtis had asked the rest of them if he could get them anything, offering to find a vending machine since the cafeteria was no doubt closed.  Linda had asked for a chocolate bar and Jack realized he could actually use one too.  Or a fruit or something, if there were any vending machines around that had any.  Such mundane things.  Keeping the body going, while the spirit waited on edge.

He spared another glance at Briscoe, leaning with his head back against the wall.  Idly wondered about what was going on there.  Briscoe looked awful.  Tired, old, depressed as hell.  Falling off the wagon after years of sobriety could do that to you, Jack supposed.

Although who said that this was Briscoe's first time falling off?  For all Jack knew, maybe this was just the first time anybody had found out.  Right?

No.  From what Jack understood of alcoholism, and thanks to Dad he understood quite a bit, people like Briscoe didn't just go back to dabbling in booze a bit.  When they went back, they went all out, and it showed.  And from what little he knew of Curtis, if Briscoe had gone back to drinking, Curtis would have noticed, and Curtis wouldn't be still partnered with him.  That would be stupid and reckless.

He looked at Curtis, who, except for trips to get coffee or snacks, was sticking by Briscoe's side like glue.  Briscoe would probably lose his job over this.  Rumour had it he'd come damn close to losing his job over his alcoholism before already.  So why was Curtis taking care of him now, when they probably weren't going to be partners very much longer?  Jack had no idea.

Cops.  He didn't understand them worth a damn.

Would Briscoe lose his job?  Let's assume this was the first time he'd had a drink in four years.  Might be the last time for four more years.  He might still be allowed to work Homicide, if this was just a one-time thing.  He might still be working with Jack.

Jack vaguely wondered how he would feel if Briscoe didn't get fired.  Would he want to work with Briscoe now, knowing that Briscoe might not be on the straight and narrow any more?  Knowing how Dad had lost evidence and cut corners when he was a lush with a badge... hell, knowing how much of a screw-up Briscoe himself had been when he was drinking... would he wholly trust whatever Briscoe sent his way from now on?

No, probably not.

He spared another glance at Curtis.  If he were Briscoe's partner, would he want to trust his life to an unreliable alcoholic?  No, he really wouldn't.  So would Curtis want to partner with him?

He had no clue.  He didn't understand cops.  Dad had once tried to explain the bond between partners.  You're not best buddies, he'd said.  In fact you can hate your partner's guts.  But you trust him with your life.  And you'll do anything for him.  You'll take care of him like a brother, because you know he'd do the same for you.  He's your partner.

Of course, Dad had to follow that up with, Good thing you're not gonna be a cop, because who the hell would ever trust their life to you.

The closest thing Jack had to a partner in that sense were his assistants.  Not the same thing, they didn't have to trust each other with their lives, but they did spend a lot of time together.  They got to know each other very well.  They got to trust each other in terms of getting the job done.

They got to rely on each other to fill in gaps, point out weak arguments, find ways around legal obstacles, find mistakes before they got before a judge or jury.  To complement one another's strengths and weaknesses.  For example, Claire was much better than he when it came to reading juries.  When it came to seeing when he was going too far down a hard line path, or getting too extreme in one way or another.  Yes, she often pointed it out in terms of ethics or whatever, but sometimes she did it from a purely practical point of view: Jack, that won't work.

It was a real joy watching Claire's mind sifting through a case, too.  She was so brilliant - inexperienced compared to him, but that was all right.  Sometimes that was an asset, as in the Kirksen case, when her inexperience translated into enthusiasm for tasks that had become rather dull to him.

She looked so gentle and feminine, and yet there was steel and razor-sharp intelligence there.  He liked that in women.  He'd once told Claire that he didn't feel the need to apologize for finding the women he worked with more stimulating than the women he met at the gym, and it was true.  All of the women he'd been in serious relationships with, including the one he'd married, they were all brilliant.  He couldn't imagine being with a woman who didn't share his passion for his work, who couldn't even understand the intricacies of the law.  What would be the point?  Once the sex was done, what would they possibly talk about?  Home decoration?  Potted plants?  Their 'relationship'?  The thought held absolutely no appeal for him.

Oh god.  Sharp pang in his chest.  Claire, please be all right.

**ooo000ooo**

Mac had taken out a notebook.  Looked it over, glanced over at Jack.

"Jack, what have you heard on the Loving case?"

"Dwight Loving v. US?" Jack asked.  Mac nodded.  Jack tried to remember the case.  He recalled a few heated discussions about it at Hogan Place - a few of them with Claire, as a matter of fact - but realized he had absolutely no idea of the particulars right now.  Except that it was coming up before the Supreme Court and had to do with a court martial and the death penalty.

"I'm scheduled for a Lunch and Learn with the Constitutional students next Tuesday.  We're examining the Loving case," Mac was staring at his notebook distractedly.  "It's an interesting case from a Constitutional point of view.  From a separation of the powers of State at least..."

"It's all smoke and mirrors.  He's arguing that the President doesn't have the power to prescribe aggravating factors, basically that RCM 1004 is unconstitutional," Jack started to remember the facts more clearly.  "Which is ridiculous.  Besides, he would have been found guilty in a regular court as well, he committed felony murder-"

"I think he has a good point.  He says that the framers of the Constitution intended that only Congress should possess the power to decide what aggravating factors justify sentencing a member of the armed forces to death."

"I don't buy original intent arguments."

"You wouldn't be very popular among our Constitutional students then."

"A lot of original intent fans among them?"

"This year's crop, yes.  It comes and goes in fads," Mac stared at his notes a little longer, sighed, put down his notebook disinterestedly.

"Claire said that even looking at original intent, there was an argument to be made that the original intent wasn't simply to prevent the military from having power over death penalty cases, but to give Congress flexibility in terms of when to share the power and when not to."

"That's a good read on it.  Claire said that?"

"Yes," Jack said distantly.  Claire said that when they were waiting for a judgment on some case.  Ida Estevez, also waiting around for a jury to come back in one of her trials, had joined them for lunch.  Claire and Ida had started a debate on the Loving case.  Jack had mostly just observed, amused to see Claire defending the right of a court martial to impose the death penalty, even though Claire had made it clear to Ida that she opposed the death penalty in principle and they were just having a theoretical debate about delegation of authority and Constitutional original intent.

Ida Estevez.  The Barracuda.  On maternity leave, Claire had said.  Not terribly easy to imagine that rather abrasive PD as a mother.  What case of Claire's was she working on before she turned it over to somebody else?

He couldn't remember.

He picked up another magazine.

**ooo000ooo**

What time was it?  Almost 3 am.

**ooo000ooo**

"She came to see me this afternoon," Mac said suddenly.

"Did she?"  Jack asked.

"Yes.  Came into my class and stayed for a while afterwards."  Jack nodded.  "She wanted to talk... she told me about the execution."  Jack sighed, closing his eyes.  Damn it.  Of course, she wanted to talk about it.  He should have been there to talk to her.  He should have... he had called her, left messages for her, but she... she probably just thought they were going to argue again.

"We argued.  I don't think I was very helpful."  Mac continued softly.  "She... she said that what she'd seen would be with her for the rest of her life."  Linda got up suddenly and walked away, and Mac, after a startled moment, quickly got up to follow her.

Jack gazed after them.  So Claire had gone to see Mac and ended up arguing with him too.  And she said that what she'd seen would be with her for the rest of her life.  Jack sighed and put his head in his hands.

Please God, let that not be one of those awful prophetic statements.

**ooo000ooo**

How long had it been since he'd been in a hospital, waiting like this?

Not since Dad.  The vigil at the end of Dad's life.

Dad again.  He and his sister and his daughter had gone to visit a few times, keeping Mom company.  Mom had grown more and more quiet as Dad's end grew nearer.  When they weren't with her, she seemed to spend a lot of her time praying in the chapel.  She'd all of a sudden found religion again in those last few days.  Jack had even accompanied her there a few times, not really praying himself, but keeping her company.  Making peace with Dad - or at least trying to.  Knowing that there was really no point in hanging on to his resentments any more.  Not that there had been any point before, but now, at the end of Dad's life, it was really time to let them go.  So while Mom was busy asking for God's intervention in making her abusive husband hang on just a few more days, he'd thought about Dad.  Tried to reconcile with him, in his mind, at least.  There hadn't been any point trying to talk to Dad at that point in time - Dad was drugged out of his mind.  He wouldn't have heard.

He stood and approached a nurse.  "Excuse me - can you tell me where the chapel is?"

**ooo000ooo**

He knelt, his mind completely blank.  He hadn't prayed in years.  Never thought of prayer.  It just didn't come up in the course of his regular existence.

What do you say to a Being that you haven't even thought of in years?  Sorry, Almighty, I've been a little busy?

There are no atheists in foxholes.  Who said that first?  Was it a normal response, when faced with something like this, with something so overwhelming you didn't even know how you felt about it, to turn to a higher Power?

Was that all there was to religion, to faith?  The childlike clinging to the hope that Somebody up there could make OK what was scary and awful, as your parents had chased the monsters out of your bedroom?

Whatever the reason for turning to God at times like this, here he was.  Kneeling as he'd knelt in his childhood, turning to God when even his parents couldn't or wouldn't make things OK.  When his parents were what was scary and awful, his father abusive, his mother ineffectual in protecting him.

He breathed in, feeling soothing peace in the chapel.  This was a place to lay down worry and sorrow, at least for a little while.  This was a place to try to gain strength, to try to feel some comfort from something.  Someone.

Lord, I'm sorry, I've been away for a long time.  I've forgotten how to pray, how to talk to You.  I don't even really know what I'm doing here.  I thought I was just coming here to think about Claire.  To try to make peace with her like I did with Dad if she...

I don't think she's going to make it.  Lennie Briscoe saw her, and drunk as he was, he knows what people look like when they're too badly damaged to live.  And he's not holding out any hope.  He's just staying with us out of a sense of obligation to Claire, to see this through to the end.  Her end.

Please, Lord.  Please spare her.  She's so young.  I never really think of how young she is, most of the time.  She's just Claire, age isn't an issue.  But...  she's hardly any older than my own daughter.  She's barely more than a child.  She's too young to die.  Especially like this.

Please, Lord.

Words failed him.  He didn't know what he wanted to say to God.

He thought absently that he was never at a loss for words.  He made his living with words, with negotiation and convincing.  And yet here he was, speechless.

I'm sorry, I suppose I don't really have much of a right to turn to You.  I...  I don't think much of people who turn to You for every little thing, who aren't independent enough to live their lives without a security blanket.

But I need a security blanket right now.

I've never really rejected Your existence.  Just haven't really had much time for You, which is...  I don't suppose the brothers at St. Ignatius would have approved of that.  I guess I've confused a lot of the small-minded attitudes of the Jesuits who educated me with You.  I know You're not really all about making sure all the words are right when you say a Hail Mary, I know You don't really live in the Eucharist.  But I guess I've thrown out a belief in Your presence along with my belief in the superstitions of Catholicism.

Lord, help me now.  Help her.  If there's any way to make her all right, to help her to fight and survive this accident, please...

I guess this is where people try to bargain.  I'm...  I don't really believe in bargaining with the Almighty.  I just haven't ever seen what possible use You could have for what people offer You in times like this.  Save my son and I'll give to the Church.  Let my husband go free and I'll say twelve rosaries every night.  Why should a Being who created Heaven and Earth care about minions on Earth saying rosaries?

But I'm asking, Lord.  Please, I'm asking You to hear me and help Claire.

It doesn't make sense to me to mouth a bunch of words that have no meaning, but if I thought that would help Claire, I would.  I would offer to go to church regularly, tithe, whatever it took.

In fact, I'm offering anyway.  Help her survive this.  I'll come back to the Church.

He almost chuckled to himself.  This is pretty arrogant.  Plea bargaining with God.  God doesn't do plea bargains.

The flip side of bargaining is, if Claire's doesn't survive, I won't come back.  Which is ridiculous.  It doesn't work that way.  Besides, it doesn't take into account all sorts of possible outcomes - if she's alive but crippled, alive but in pain, alive but brain damaged...

He felt his throat tighten.  Alive but her personality completely changed, until she was no longer the Claire he knew.  Would that be Claire, then?  If she survived but wasn't anything like what she was before?  Accident victims who suffer brain damage sometimes become unrecognizable.  Some become mean where they were kind.  Some become slow where they were once quicksilver bright.

What would that be like?  Claire's intelligent, alert eyes turned dull and uncomprehending?  Claire's smooth voice turned thick and slurred, or sharp and shrewish?

That wouldn't be Claire.

Please, let her live.

Whatever happens, let her live.  We can work on the rest later.  Just let her be alive to work on it.

I'll come back to the Church.  No bargaining.  Whether she lives or dies, I'll come back.  I've been away too long.

Please, just let her live.

And if she doesn't, let me be able to deal with that.  Let me know and believe that she's still somewhere.  That her light hasn't been snuffed out for good.  That she's somewhere better.

Please.

**ooo000ooo**

No.

Please, no.

He felt himself standing, along with Mac and Linda, as they watched the doctor approach, none of them needing to hear his medical jargon to understand the bottom line.

That was that.  The wait was over, and as painful as it had been, he would have given anything to still be waiting.  To not have to hear this quiet voice droning on, every word taking them farther down a road where Claire was no longer a part of their lives.

Still alive.  Technically.  But not on her own.  Just a shell, there had been too much damage for the person that was Claire to survive.

And now the doctor was leaving, with a few final words of condolences.  Linda was supposed to go and sign the papers needed to disconnect Claire's body from the machines.

Curtis was standing silently near him, and Jack finally looked at him.  "Is there anything we can do?" he asked quietly.  Jack shook his head.  They'd done what they could, keeping vigil with them through the night.  There was nothing more to be done.

"Take him home," he nodded his head at Briscoe.  Curtis nodded and turned back to his partner.  He and Briscoe said their condolences to Linda and Mac.

"It's OK.  Don't blame yourself, please.  It wasn't your fault," Jack heard Linda say to Briscoe before turning away with Mac at her side.  Jack spared a glance at Briscoe.  Briscoe looked exhausted, devastated as he'd never seen the cynical detective look.  Probably feeling responsible for this.  Jack wondered at that distantly - why should Briscoe feel responsible?  He wasn't the one who'd asked Claire to come to that bar.  He'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He wasn't the one who'd said To hell with her.  He dismissed Briscoe from his thoughts as he followed Linda and Mac to Claire's side.

**ooo000ooo**

Jack looked at the bed.  There she was, a woman in a hospital bed, a heart monitor beeping too steadily for its rhythm to be natural.  A machine inflating her lungs with mechanical exactitude.

That wasn't Claire.

Her black hair was shaved off, a bandage around her skull where the doctors had tried to deal with the bleeding into her brain.  Her eyes were closed, but there was no movement beneath the eyelids, showing that the brain was still active even in rest.  Just lids that had been pulled down over unseeing eyes like curtains over the windows of an empty house.

Machines were keeping the organs in this corpse alive until they could be transferred to living beings.  All of Claire's individuality, all her sparkle and intelligence, had been taken from her.  Reduced to total powerlessness, mindlessly awaiting her death.

He didn't feel anything.

Linda choked back a sob, taking Claire's limp hand in her own, silently pleading with her daughter to wake up.

He didn't feel anything.

She let go of Claire's hand and moved closer to her, kissed her forehead, and turned to the doctor, nodding.  Then she stopped and looked at Jack.

"Jack?  Do you want to say goodbye?" she asked quietly.  Jack was momentarily puzzled.  Say goodbye?  To what?  To the empty shell that Claire left behind?  Then he found himself nodding, realizing that at some future point in his life he might regret not having taken his leave of Claire in the only way he really could.  He approached her body.

Linda sobbed quietly and Mac put his arm around her shoulders as a soft keening sound rose from her throat.  Jack didn't feel anything.

Come on, Claire.  Wake up, he found himself thinking.  This can't really be happening.  You've got to wake up and tell me I'm a son of a bitch for not giving a damn about Mickey Scott's miserable life or for not taking your feminist rhetoric seriously enough or for having the nerve to order for you at a restaurant.  Come on.

No movement.  Of course not.  Why should there be any?  Dead was dead and people only woke up from irreversible comas in soap operas and children's stories.  He gently stroked the side of her face, where the breathing tube didn't distort her features too much, and made himself look at her.  He slowly raised her cold hand to his lips and kissed her fingers gently.

He didn't feel anything.

He put her hand down and stepped back from the bed, nodding to Linda.  Linda beckoned the doctor over and he quietly and efficiently removed the tubes and lines from Claire's body.  Her chest rose and fell one last time.  And then she just lay there.  One minute she was breathing... and then she was gone.


	4. Absence

**CHAPTER 4: ABSENCE**

Jack looked out the window of the cab.  Early dawn in New York City.  Amazing how much of the city was still alive, even at this late hour.  Or rather, at this early hour.  Newspapers being delivered.  Garbage trucks going to the poorer neighbourhoods.  Trucks delivering groceries.  Hard-core joggers.  The city was waking up.  Not very many private cars though.

_Tell you what, they should ban cars in __Manhattan__...  What no witty response?_

_You leave me speechless._

_Nobody forced you to watch it._

Jack closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of the seat.

**ooo000ooo**

He unlocked his door, distantly remembering how hard it had been to unlock it last night.  Walked in and glanced around his empty, dark apartment.  Pile of files to review on the table.  Books scattered haphazardly all over every surface.  His motorcycle helmet on the kitchen counter.  Dry cleaning that he'd picked up two days ago.

He'd left Linda and Mac at the hospital, Linda sobbing tiredly in Mac's arms and Mac looking old and worn.

After they'd left the room where Claire had died, a social worker had approached, said a few vague comforting words, and put a card in Linda's hand, with numbers for grief counselors, insurance advisors, and funeral homes.  Linda had stared at the card.

"Oh god.  My own daughter's funeral - I can't-"

"Linda, I can do that, if you want," Jack had offered numbly.

"It's all right," Mac said.  "You don't have to do that, we'll take care of it."

Linda nodded tearfully, then looked at Jack more closely.  "Do you want to?" He nodded.  May as well.  "I don't think she would have wanted anything elaborate, just... she said once that she... that she wanted to be cremated-"

"Yes, I know," Jack said.  "I don't remember how it came up, but she said once that she didn't want to take up space after her death."

Linda smiled slightly and wiped her eyes.  "Just call the funeral home on the card, Jack.  Make it as soon as possible.  And call the people you know from her workplace."

"All right."

They hadn't talked much beyond that, other than Mac quietly telling him to go home and get some rest before making the arrangements.

He looked at the clock.  Too early to call the funeral home.  He rubbed his jaw, felt rough stubble, decided to shave.

**ooo000ooo**

What now?  Sleep?  He hadn't really slept since two days ago.  He'd slept some in the car on the way to Attica and back, and fallen into a drunken slumber last night, but that wasn't enough.  Didn't feel tired, though.  So why not make a list.

_- call Adam_

_- call judge re.  Kirksen_

_- breakfast_

_- call funeral home_

_- reschedule cases, appointments_

_- inform re.  funeral at work_

_- call C's contacts_

He decided to tackle what he could for now.  Breakfast.  Then call Adam at six.  Adam should be awake by then.

**ooo000ooo**

"Yes?" Adam Schiff answered his maid irritably as he finished buttoning up his shirt.

"Mr. Schiff, phone for you," she called from behind his bedroom door.

"Take a message."

"It's Mr. McCoy, he says he needs to speak to you."

Adam opened his door and took the phone, intrigued.  Why would Jack be calling him at home at this ungodly hour?

"Jack?"

"Adam.  I'm calling to let you know that, uh, Claire was in a car accident last night.  She died this morning at about 4 a.m."

Adam sat down heavily, speechless for a moment.  "Claire Kincaid?  Died this morning?" he glanced at his watch.  Two hours ago?

"Yes, I thought you should know - there are a bunch of cases we're working - we were working on together, that's all going to get screwed up."

"Jack, for God's sake-" Adam stopped himself.  It sounded like Jack was on autopilot.  "All right, don't worry, I'll call the secretarial staff, everything at work will be taken care of.  Is there anything I else can do?  Do you want me at the hospital-"

"No, no, that's all right, I'm not at the hospital, it's just Claire's mother and stepfather there - actually, I suppose they've probably gone home too..." he trailed off, cleared his throat.  "Push a few of my cases back for me too, would you?  We - I'm supposed to be at the Kirksen closing today, but-"

"That's fine, that's fine, I'll handle it," Adam said brusquely.  "Who's the judge?"

"Fraser."

"No problem, I'll give him a call.  I'll get an indefinite continuance."

"No, just give me a few days, the case was close to wrapping up anyway."

Adam bit his tongue before asking Jack what the hell he could possibly be thinking, "Fine, I'll get it recessed till Monday.  Is there anything else?  Anybody I can call for you?"

"No, I think that's it."

"Where are you?"

"I'm at home.  I just need to - Claire's mother wants to hold the funeral as soon as possible, I said I'd arrange it."

"Do you need any help with that?"

"No, I think it's just going to be a simple ceremony.  I'll probably just call the funeral home and go with whatever they say.  Claire wouldn't have wanted anything big, I don't think." He cleared his throat again.  "I'll see you at work in a couple of hours, I'll let you know if there's anything else that needs doing."

"You're coming in to work?" Adam couldn't quite keep his tone even.

"Yes," Jack said, as if that were what any normal person would do in these circumstances.  "I have to get going, Adam, I'll talk to you later." He hung up.

Adam shook his head in disbelief.  Everybody deals with loss in their own way, he supposed.

Claire Kincaid.  Gone.  He stared at the phone in his hand.  Good Lord.  It didn't seem possible.

"Adam?" his wife appeared by his side.  "What is it?"

"That was Jack.  Claire Kincaid was in a car accident, she just died two hours ago."

"Oh my God." She sat down next to him.  "Oh my God.  Adam, dear Lord, she's just a child." Adam nodded.  "How is Jack?"

"He says he's going to plan her funeral and then go to work."

"You're joking." Adam shook his head.  "It hasn't hit him yet, has it?" she asked grimly.

"No." Adam reached out and held his wife close.  "No, I don't think it has."

**ooo000ooo**

Jack put down the phone.  Good of Adam to not say I told you so, he thought vaguely.  Adam had always said it was a bad idea to get involved with assistants, and this pretty much proved it.  Well, whatever, Adam had nobody but himself to blame for this.  He should have known better than to assign Claire Kincaid to him, given his reputation.

Who had been his assistant before Claire?  Steve Millchamps.  Decent guy.  A mediocre litigator but an excellent researcher.  He and Steve had been motoring along just fine until Steve had decided to bail on him - the lure of defense finally got too strong.  Almost simultaneously, Ben Stone had abruptly up and quit.  Some ethical reason - a witness he'd pressured into testifying had been killed by the Russian Mob, and Ben, sensitive soul that he was, just couldn't live with that.  So Jack had gone to Adam and requested an assistant.

"Now that Steve's jumped across the aisle on me I need an assistant.  A permanent one, not temps from the pool."

"Do you have anyone in mind?"

"How about Kincaid?"

"Miss Kincaid?"

"Yes.  I read some of her work, she's been doing very well for herself.  And she's helped you to mop up the mess Stone left behind.  She's short a boss, I'm short an assistant - seems a match made in Heaven."

"Really."

"I read that case comment she wrote on the Manuel trial - it was brilliant."

"Brilliant."

"Yes."

Silence.

"Do you know how old she is?"

He'd been puzzled.  "Are you saying she's not a seasoned lawyer?  She's been working with Stone for over a year, she's hardly right out of law school.  She hasn't done much more than second chair for Stone, but that's probably just because Stone's not the best when it comes to assistants, he doesn't let them spread their wings.  How he kept Paul Robinette for three years is a mystery to everyone." Adam was still gazing at him with his habitual sour expression.  "Besides, what's she going to do instead, prosecute welfare fraud?  She's been helping on all of Stone's cases, the really interesting cases.  She'll probably jump at the chance to stay on as EADA assistant."

"You think so?"

"Yes, of course." Adam gave him an indecipherable scowl.  "Adam, what is it?"

"You have a reputation.  A good one in the courtroom.  Not so good with your female assistants."

"Adam!" he protested.

"Miss Kincaid is a bright young woman who might have aspirations other than becoming another notch on your bedpost."

"Adam, give me some credit, she's half my age.  Besides, I haven't dated an assistant since Diana."

"Oh, yes, it's been three whole years.  How time flies."

He'd been intensely irritated.  He vaguely remembered having seen Claire Kincaid a few times, didn't remember much about what she looked like other than too delicate to really be his type, but it was galling to think that he might not get a top-notch assistant just because Adam decided to get Puritan about office politics.

"Do you want me to sign a contract?  No footsie with the assistant?"

"If I thought signing a contract would make any damn difference to you, I would have written one up years ago." Jack grinned, acknowledging that he probably deserved that.  "Just so we're on the same page," Adam said gruffly, "I will ask Miss Kincaid if she wants to be assigned to you.  And you will conduct yourself with the dignity that befits the position of Executive Assistant District Attorney, and not turn this office into your personal dating service for the fourth time."

"Yes, sir," he'd smiled, pleased to be getting his way.

**ooo000ooo**

By nine thirty, he was entering Hogan Place.  He had gotten in contact with the home that was listed on the card, Ginghampton Funeral Home, and spent some time agreeing to everything that the home suggested.  Yes, flowers, yes, music, yes, 2pm tomorrow is fine, yes, reception afterwards, no, not religious, fine, here's my work number and pager.  They were going to call him back, ask him about Claire for the eulogy.  They wanted the numbers of any of Claire's close friends and family that they could contact as well.

Jack went to Claire's desk.  Where did she keep her contact book?  It was blue, he knew that much - oh, there we go.  He flipped it open, started to scan through.

Adams, Marion.  Claire had spoken of her.  Some college friend she was very close to.  She didn't live in New York any more, and Claire had been upset when she'd been in town a few months back and they hadn't been able to connect.  Jack wrote down her number.

Bell, Margot.  Defense attorney from the Weber case, also a good friend of Claire's.  He wrote that one down too.  Methodically went through from A to Z, finishing up with seven names.

Right.  He also needed to contact people to come to the funeral tomorrow.

No, there were too many people.  He should probably get a secretary to type up an internal memo and go through and call names in Claire's book.  He didn't have the heart to do it himself - besides, there was going to be a hell of a lot of work to do reassigning her cases.  He picked up his phone to contact the secretarial staff, waited blankly for a minute while it rang, then put it down with a sigh of impatience.  He'd automatically dialed Claire's number - she was the one who normally dealt with the secretarial staff.

_Claire, send these diagrams to get blown up so the jury can see them._

_Claire, here's the sentence recommendation, could you get the secretary to type it up?_

He picked up the phone again, looking up the number for the secretarial pool.  Didn't know who was their regular secretary.  His regular secretary, now.  He supposed he'd better find out.

"Administration," answered a voice.

"This is Jack McCoy.  I need to get a secretary to-"

"Mr. McCoy!  Oh," the voice sounded unsteady all of a sudden.  "Oh, sir, we just heard - sir, we're so sorry-"

Jack sighed wearily.  "Yes, thank you.  I need to get a secretary to make some phone calls.  Are we - am I still assigned to Christine?"

"No, sir, Christine left a month ago.  Phyllis is doing most of your work.  I'll put her on.  I'm so sorry, Mr. McCoy."

"Thank you." He waited for a minute, then heard another woman's voice on the line, sounding teary.

"Mr. McCoy?" she wavered.

"Yes, I need to get some phone calls made.  Where are you?"

"Uh - I'll come to you, sir.  I'll be right there," the woman's voice cut off abruptly.

**ooo000ooo**

OK, he thought an hour later.  That was it, then.  Her friends were getting messages, the funeral home still hadn't called back about the eulogy, a memo had been sent out around Hogan Place, the Kirksen case had been pushed back.  He'd called Van Buren at the 27th, figuring some of the cops might want to come to her funeral too.  Claire got along well with cops.

Now what?

He idly tapped the edge of Claire's mug, which she'd left on his desk.  Her mother must have bought it for her - it had some sort of floral pattern that he couldn't see Claire picking out for herself at all.

He looked at his current caseload.  Thought of Claire's desk, with her current caseload there as well.  May as well start tackling who to give those cases to.

The news had been filtering through Hogan Place so some of what he had to do probably wouldn't be a problem; people had already heard and begun to plan accordingly.  He supposed Adam had called somebody, and then people had told each other.  He'd heard some hushed voices, a few tears, Claire's name being mentioned, as he moved around the office.  A few people had come up and briefly said their condolences, but he'd put them off before they got too maudlin.

He felt a wave of weariness.  Put his forehead on his hand for a moment, briefly indulging in rest before making himself push on.  There was too much to do to just sit there.

"Jack?" He looked up.  One of the PDs, Joyce Glacken, was standing at the door, looking shocked and shaken.  "I...  I was supposed to go over the Gonzalez case with Claire today.  I just heard.  Jack, I'm so sorry."

"Gonzalez?"

"AKA Enrique Gomez."

"Oh.  I'm sorry, I haven't assigned her cases to-"

"Good God, Jack, I realize that.  Don't worry about it, Gonzalez can certainly rot in limbo until we figure things out."

"I think Claire was going to offer Life Without Parole and drop the rape charge."

Joyce blinked, startled, then automatically said, "No problem.  Sure."

"You'll take it?"

"Are you kidding?  My piece of crap client could potentially be facing the needle.  I'll let him know you made a generous offer and he should take Life and send you a Thank You card."

"All right," he looked back at his stack of files.

"Jack?" Joyce asked hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"Is there anything I can do?"

"No," he said shortly, unwilling to look up and see the sympathy in her eyes.  It was beginning to get on his nerves, the sorrowful look on people's faces.  "By the way, the funeral's tomorrow, Ginghampton Funeral Home, 2pm." Joyce nodded and left.  Jack gazed at the door closing behind her.  Was it really just yesterday - no, two days ago - that he and Claire were talking about this plea bargain in the car on the way to Attica?  He'd suggested threatening Murder One and the death penalty for the viciousness of Gomez's killing.

_Isn't his attorney Joyce Glacken?_

_Mhm__._

_She always pleads out.  She'll probably tell him to take Life and run._

_Great, so justice is served because of a death threat and a bad public defender._

_Would you rather have him out to do it again?_

**ooo000ooo**

'Firenze, Prato, Pisa', said the brochure in his desk drawer as he searched for staples.  Michelangelo's David graced the cover, 'The Works of the Masters' scripted under it.  Left over from when they'd been planning their trip to Tuscany.  That brochure must have been sitting in the drawer for months now.  He really had to go through and clean his desk one of these days.

Claire hadn't wanted to overcrowd their itinerary, and since she was the one doing most of the planning, he'd just left it to her.  Which was good, because when he'd missed the first three days of their vacation together, it hadn't been a nightmare of unrefundable tickets and missed events.  Claire had just gone ahead and done some sightseeing to places he wasn't that interested in while she waited for him.

She'd looked so relaxed and happy when he showed up.  Dressed in casual clothing, not the suits she wore at Hogan Place.  Not even the utilitarian jeans and jacket she wore off the job.  A sun dress, of all things, that left her shoulders bare.

She wouldn't have been wearing that in Ireland this summer.  They had been planning - well, she had been planning - more of a 'hiking through the moors and old cemeteries' type of trip.  Going to small-town pubs.  Kissing the Blarney Stone.

Not what Diana Hawthorne had wanted at all, when they went to Ireland together.  Diana had wanted old cathedrals and museums and Irish culture in the big cities.  Which was fine by him.  He was pleased with her, pleased with himself, having just won the Dillard case and having just made EADA, and he'd gone along with whatever she wanted.  He'd picked Ireland as a destination, and she'd picked what they would do once they got there.

When Claire had cross-examined Diana during her trial, she had prodded Diana into admitting that she hadn't followed orders from Jack during the Dillard case, that everything she did, she did of her own initiative.  Because that's what she thought he wanted, although he'd never told her so.  "Your boss and your lover, that's a pretty strong influence," Claire had said.  "You wanted his admiration... you wanted his affection... and what better way than to make him a gift of that promotion?  And like all good gifts, it was a surprise."  And Diana, shocked at Claire's unexpectedly insightful reading of motivations Diana herself had never really understood, had pretty much crumbled.

Claire had been absolutely incredible during that trial.  Diana looked so much more sophisticated, carried herself with so much more maturity and arrogant, elegant grace.  She'd projected amused condescension towards Claire, seeing in Claire only a naïve youngster who'd taken the place Diana no longer wanted, at Jack's side and in Jack's bed.

And Claire, wide-eyed, idealistic Claire, had come out of nowhere and knocked Diana flat on her ass, on the stand.

Later, when Claire had accepted Diana's plea bargain, he'd told her, "You didn't have to take the deal, Claire. You would have won the case."

"I know... but I thought that's what you wanted," she'd said very seriously.  He'd felt a stab of alarm at that before she cracked up, laughing at his uncomfortable expression.  Claire joked so seldom that it was all the sweeter when she did.

**ooo000ooo**

Martinez.  Claire had been working on getting a pair of bloodstained pants made admissible.  Other than that, the case was ready to go, he shouldn't need any help with it.  He placed it on the stack of "I don't need help with this."

Meginelli.  No, that was in the preliminary stages.  He'd need somebody to do research.  On the other stack - "Must reassign".

Fox.  That case was stalled as hell.

And he didn't give a shit about it.

He stared out across the room.  He didn't give a flying fuck.  Joey Fox, a habitual Peeping Tom, had decided to do more than peep one night, had raped a woman, would probably get away with it because the case was going nowhere fast, and he couldn't care less.

OK, he should probably go home and get some sleep.  He started to put the files on the "I don't need help with these" pile away.

"Jack?"

He closed his eyes.  Liz Olivet.  No, not this again.  "Yes."

"I heard."

He nodded tiredly, wondering how to get Liz out of his office as quickly as possible.

Liz looked at him for a moment, then cleared her throat.  "All right, I'm not here to try to get you to share," she said, her voice clinical and detached.  He shot her a grateful look.  Thank god, no fumbling attempt at sympathy like yesterday.  "I'm just going to give you some professional advice and then I'll get out of your way.  It looks like you're fairly busy." He nodded, putting away another file.  She stepped closer to his desk.  "First off, you've probably guessed that this hasn't really hit you yet.  Work if you want to, go on with your normal routine if it helps, but be aware that at some point this will come home.  Don't try to hide it from yourself."

He nodded unemotionally, not bothering to look up from the files he was putting away.

"Grief is a normal process, but most people don't have much experience dealing with it.  This may affect you in unexpected ways.  Be aware of that.  You may have difficulty sleeping or concentrating on your work, you may feel upset for a very long time.  It might be a good idea to take some time off work, or seek counseling.  There are also grief support groups if you feel like availing yourself of them.  I'll bring a list of resources for you.  When and if you do choose to talk to somebody, you know I'll be glad to listen."

He nodded again.  There was a brief pause.  "Is that all?" he asked.  She nodded.  "Thank you."

"Jack.  I'm sorry," she said softly.  He acknowledged her sympathy with a quick nod and she quietly left.

**ooo000ooo**

All right, he was done in his office.  He'd come back tomorrow and continue to work through.  Oh - he better go pick up the book he'd given Claire for the Martinez case, the one about medical ethics.  She was going to look up some stuff on doctor-patient privilege, but he supposed he'd better do that now.  It was probably with her things.

He found himself looking through Claire's bookshelf.

_Feminist Jurisprudence._

_Evidence._

_For Whose Protection?__  Reproductive Hazards and Exclusionary Policies in the __United States__ and __Britain__._

_Toward a Feminist Theory of the State._

"I don't think this is the time or the place for a full-blown debate about your latent feminism," he'd told her during their first case together.  They were prosecuting Dr. Nancy Haas, who used women's fear of mutilation to sell them a "non-surgical" quack remedy for breast cancer that killed them.

"Number one, it's not latent," she'd shot back.  "Number two, since when did privacy become a feminist issue?"

He smiled to himself, thinking of that case.  Their relationship had started out rather more conflictively than he had expected.  He didn't know why he'd expected harmony, given that he was a fairly conflictive person and she was, after all, a lawyer, used to an adversarial system.  But part of him had probably subconsciously identified her with her boss, Ben Stone, who was one of the gentlest, most gentlemanly people at Hogan Place.  Part of Stone's undoing, actually.  He guessed he had somehow figured that working for Stone she must have been the same as him.  Which was ridiculous.

Besides, even the Sainted Stone had his bad side.  Look at how he went through assistants before Paul Robinette.  In any case, he'd first met Claire when she had come to his office to discuss Dr. Haas.  Her first words had set the tone for their relationship:

"Your reputation precedes you," he'd said.

"As does yours," she'd replied.  And she threw his affairs with his assistants in his face.  He'd been momentarily taken aback, feeling a trio of emotions burble up.  Amusement that Adam was right and she did, after all have an awareness of his sexual history.  Irritation that even educated lawyers chose to focus on who's-sleeping-with-whom trivialities of the office.  And some slight dismay, hoping that this wouldn't negatively impact on their working relationship.

The best defense is a good offence, he'd quickly told himself, and bluntly refused to defend his choice of romantic partners.  And smiled inwardly that he seemed to have taken a bit of the wind out of her sails, especially when he reassured her that he didn't anticipate a problem working with her.

He smiled slightly, thinking of those first few months.  How at first he'd seen her as just another lawyer - better and more dedicated than most, but nothing more than a colleague.  He hadn't been lying to Adam when he'd assured Adam he had no ulterior motives in wanting her in his office.  She really was too young.  Too delicate-looking.  Too idealistic, not his type at all.

Except that after a month or so he'd started to grudgingly realize that she was exactly his type.  Of course.  Female, attractive, driven by work, passionate about the law, and highly intelligent.  What had he expected?

He'd groaned to himself the first time he woke up from a rather vivid dream starring his young assistant - nothing too graphic, but certainly what she'd been doing in his dream, and where they had been headed, had been decidedly inappropriate.  The surprise of it had cleared away his sleepiness as effectively as being woken up by a loud noise.

Don't go there, he'd told himself sternly.  Not only will Adam kill you, she'll kill you too.  She's made it quite clear that she is not interested in becoming, as Adam said, another notch on your bedpost.

Except that he'd caught flashes of interest in her eyes.  And he was a fairly good judge of women when it came to that.  There were times when she held his gaze a little too long.  Smiled a little wider than people normally do for an acquaintance.  So many little hints here and there.

Arguing with himself for the first little while, he'd tested out the waters.  Paying a compliment here, making a comment there, seeing how she reacted.  Leaning a little closer than he normally would, seeing if she drew away.  She didn't.

All right.  He'd gathered the evidence and concluded that she was interested.  Now what?

His internal debate had been rather brief, as he recalled.  Ethics and what-will-people-think had never carried much weight with him.  She seemed interested, he definitely was, they were both adults, and Adam had put up with far worse from him.  So it only remained to break the ice.

Which he had, and she'd turned him down.  Letting him know that no, he hadn't been wrong, yes, she was interested, but in the end, No.  She didn't want to pursue anything.

Oh well.  He'd been surprised at how disappointed he felt, but what the hell.  No harm in asking a question as long as you listen to the answer, his English teacher always said.  They'd gone back to business as usual.

And then.

Jack closed his eyes, remembering that night.

"You know what you brought up the last time we ate out?" she asked.

"The Hagen case?" he said, distracted, wondering if his unusually overdone veal was tough enough to justify calling the waiter over and demanding a new one.

"No, not the Hagen case."

He'd searched his memory.  They had been at an Italian restaurant, had discussed the Hagen case, and - and Claire was looking down at her plate with an uncharacteristically shy expression on her face.

She cleared her throat.  "You brought up that you were getting the feeling that there was..." he suddenly got it, felt a smile start on his face, and caught Claire's sudden rise in colour, "that there was more going on than just a professional relationship."

"Yes I did," he said slowly.  There was a pause.  "And you said that you thought so too, but you didn't want to pursue it."

"That's what I said, yes," she'd met his eyes, and now they were both smiling.

"And is that how you still feel?"

"Not...  exactly."

He had felt his body almost immediately responding to her, to her bright eyes and warm smile.  Whoa!  He'd firmly commanded himself to not embarrass himself like a teenage boy seeing a bra for the first time.

"Claire.  What, exactly, are you saying?" he'd teased gently.

"I'm not sure... exactly," she'd replied.  And they'd shared a moment of exciting uncertainty, both grinning like kids at Christmastime, his heart beating just a little faster than normal, feeling that wonderful start-of-something-good feeling.

They were going to take it slow, he remembered.  That had been the plan.  Maybe go to dinner together again and not just because of work this time.  Maybe a couple of movies.  See where events led them.

That had been the plan.  A good plan, as far as that went.  A wise plan.

A completely unworkable plan.  They'd gone to one dinner together, she'd invited him over for coffee, and the next morning they'd scrambled to get him back to his place in time to pick up a new suit, since they were due in court.

Jack sighed and finished putting his files away.  All done here.  Nothing more to do.  He picked up a sticky note that had fallen out of a file - Claire's writing.

_Prnts__?__  Check w.  B&C_

That was probably from the Fox file.  And he'd already talked to Briscoe about it.  He crumpled up the sticky, went to toss it in the trash can.  Stopped and smoothed it out, tracing the words, staring at the little yellow square piece of paper.  That was probably one of the last things Claire wrote.

He crumpled it up.  Don't be stupidly sentimental, he told himself sternly, almost angry at himself.  Don't hang on to a fucking sticky note just because she wrote it.  That's ridiculous.  He tossed in the trash.

**ooo000ooo**

'Enjoy Friskys' Adult XXX Video's', a neon sign blinked at him ungrammatically as he stopped his bike at a red light.  It felt odd to be out on his bike so early - most days he didn't leave the office until much later.  Another day of work cut short.  And tomorrow he was going to miss even more work, since the funeral was in the afternoon.  Wait - was tomorrow a Saturday?

That was another thing, he realized as he waited for the light.  Normally when he was out on his bike this early in the day, Claire was behind him, holding on to his waist.

She'd been so excited the first time he took her on his bike.  Eyes bright, cheeks flushed.  Complaining that the helmet made her look like a deep-sea diver, a little trepidatious about climbing on, but loving it once they were off.

Her helmet.  He'd have to figure out what to do with it.  The light turned and he started up again, narrowly missed being sideswiped.  Damn cabs - they had no respect for motorcycles.  The best way to ride a motorcycle is to assume every car on the road is out to get you, his instructor had told him, and that attitude hadn't failed Jack yet.

'Gow's Take Out & Delivery', blinked another sign at him at the next stoplight.  'Two can dine for 11.99'.  What a rip-off.  Their 'two can dine' deal barely fed Claire.  They did have the best Hot and Sour Soup in the city, though, as well as the only one that didn't look like a cesspool.

_Claire?  Won ton soup, two spring rolls, sweet and sour chicken balls, mixed veggie rice and shredded beef?_

_You know what I like, Jack._

_If only you were this predictable in other areas._

_What would be the fun in that?_

Suddenly his pager went off.  He took a look at it, seeing an unfamiliar number.  Quickly realized it was the Ginghampton Funeral Home.  He decided on impulse to go there instead of going home - he might as well get this over with.

**ooo000ooo**

Two hours later, he was leaving the funeral home.  It had been a rather tedious process, approving this and that for the funeral... what a lot of fuss over something that was only going to last about half an hour at most.

The funeral director, a Mrs. Hysell, had asked him about Claire, showed him what the people she'd been able to reach had told her about Claire as well.  Blah blah blah.  None of what he saw on the page bore the slightest resemblance to the woman he'd known for the last two years.  Even what he'd talked to Hysell about ended up having little to do with Claire once he saw it written down.

"How did she get along with the people she worked with?"

"Fine."

"How did she get along with you?"

"Fine."

Hysell had paused delicately.  "It's a little unusual for a boss to arrange for his assistant's funeral.  Usually we have family doing this," she'd said, opening that door.  He'd nodded wearily.

"I suppose so.  I'm guessing you talked to her mother though.  You know I wasn't just her boss."

Hysell had nodded compassionately.  "Tomorrow, would you like to sit with the family?"

"No, that's all right.  I don't need to."

"Tell me a little bit about Claire."

"What about her?"

"I need to get a feel for what she was like."

"What do you have so far?" he'd asked her.  She'd showed him her notes, neatly summarized so far.

_graduated near top of class at Harvard  
could have chosen high paying job  
physically active - ran, played racquetball  
extremely hard-working  
very ambitious  
very ethical  
very principled  
genuinely good person  
idealistic  
talked about burning out  
challenged herself  
fought for justice  
bright  
compassionate  
kind_

"That pretty much covers it."

"Is there anything you'd like to add?"

He'd thought for a moment.  "She... she wasn't afraid of conflict."

"With you?"

"With anybody.  She... she once yelled at our boss.  He was the District Attorney for Manhattan, and she was just a lowly ADA, and she... defied him, without a second thought."  He'd smiled at the memory.

_My mistake was in following your lead, _Mr. Schiff_.  I cut a deal the way you like them: quick, cheap, and out the door._

"She quit a couple of times too, for ethical reasons." He'd watched as Hysell added these tidbits to her notes on Claire.

"What happened yesterday?"

What happened yesterday.  Where to begin?

"We went to see an execution."

"Yes, I heard.  First execution in the State since we reinstated the death penalty."  She'd looked at him.  "Why did you go?"

"We were the prosecutors who convicted him."

"Did Claire agree with his sentence?"

"No.  In fact, she disagreed very strongly.  She pushed as hard as she could to stop it." And if only he'd listened to her, she'd be alive.

"So why did she go?"

"She felt it was her duty.  She felt that whether she agreed with it or not, since she was part of it, she should be there till the end."

"Is that why you went?"

"I went because she asked me to."

"Why did she ask you to?"

"Because I believe in the death penalty."

I believe in the death penalty.

_You saw a man die today, you were instrumental in the process._

"And then?"

"And then what?  What did she do after that?" Hysell nodded.  "I don't know.  I don't know what she did for the rest of the day.  She took the day off."

_Sometimes you have to take a beat, Jack._

If only he had.  With her, instead of by himself at some stupid bar.

"I told her to take the day off.  I was hoping that it would help, that she would make peace with it... I guess I'll never know now whether she did..." he'd trailed off, shook his head and told Hysell, "She went to see her stepfather at some point during the day.  If you haven't talked to him already, ask him about it.  He may know more than me." She'd nodded, making a note to herself.  "Is there anything else?" Hysell had looked at him for a long moment before silently shaking her head.

He wearily climbed onto his bike.  He felt exhausted, worn out, and vaguely sad, but not much more.  This hadn't 'come home' yet, Liz Olivet had said.  She was probably right.

Well, maybe not.  He'd had all night to accept this - the initial denial and fear and hope slowly melting into a grim certainty that Claire wasn't going to survive, before he ever saw her body breathe its last.  And he'd had all day to be reminded of the fact that Claire was gone.  It didn't 'come home' much more than planning her funeral and reassigning her cases.

He would have thought there would be more difficulty accepting her loss, more of a sense of unreality.  But it didn't feel unreal.  It felt very real, as a matter of fact.  As real as his father's death, as real as Mickey Scott's.  She was gone, unmistakable fact.  Her absence was as tangible as her presence had ever been.  Pervasive, a glaring hole in every part of his life.  This was as real as anything could possibly be.

**ooo000ooo**

He entered her apartment, his last stop before going home to sleep.  He was tired as hell, but it was probably a good thing he'd made himself work and then go to the funeral home - that way he'd sleep through the night, instead of sleeping the day away and then being up all night.

OK.  He was supposed to pick up a dress for her to wear in her coffin.  He didn't really see the point in it since it was going to be a closed casket funeral and she was going to be cremated right after the ceremony anyway, but Linda wanted her to be burned wearing something nice.

He looked around.  The apartment seemed somewhat neater and cleaner than usual.  Not that Claire was a messy person - in fact, she was a lot more orderly than he was - but her apartment usually looked somewhat uncared-for.  With the faintly dusty, musty feel of a place that is used primarily to store things, as opposed to a place that is lived in.  Claire's office at Hogan Place retained a lot more of her identity than her home.

He looked down at the small table next to Claire's front door.  It usually held a clutter of files and papers and unprocessed mail. Today, just "Understanding Schizophrenia", a library book, from the look of it, and the answering machine, with the light steadily blinking.  He sat down on the little stool next to the table, pressed the button.  And as he listened to his own messages interspersed with others, his voice getting more and more drunk, he felt the distance he'd been feeling since her chest rose and fell for the last time start to slowly crumble.

He hadn't been so distant and unemotional yesterday, to judge from his voice.  He'd been so angry with her.  So god damn angry, and frustrated...  and hurt that she hadn't called him, that he'd waited around for her all day and she didn't even call him back...

The last thing he felt about her was anger and a wish to get her the hell out of his life.  Yes, he'd been drunk, yes, it had been a long day.  But God in Heaven, how could he have felt that way about her on the last day she was alive - how could their last conversation have been an argument, how could he not have known that he would never see her again -

Oh God.

He was never going to see her again.  He was never going to hear her voice again.  She would never sit across from him at a restaurant, never lean over his shoulder and point out a flaw in a legal argument, never sit on the couch in his office with him -

Jack literally felt unable to breathe.  He had been feeling somewhat relieved that all he felt was vague sadness and fatigue, wondering at that, part of him well aware that Liz was right and this just hadn't hit him yet.  And now it had.  And it was like being shot - the pain was unimaginable.  He stared at the machine as it started to shimmer, felt a sob tearing from him, doubling over and pressing his forehead to the table.

Claire, God, no.

Never again.  All those memories he had of her, that was all he'd ever have.  There wouldn't be any more.  That story was done, cut off in the middle, never to be finished.

**ooo000ooo**

Hours later, he finally entered his apartment again.

He'd eventually gotten a grip again at her place.  There wasn't any point in sitting in a dead woman's apartment crying over her loss.  He was supposed to pick up a dress for her and he did so, making himself move through the grief, mechanically picking something that she probably would have hated but her mother would probably love.  What Claire wanted didn't matter any more anyway.  Funerals are for the living, his grandmother used to say.  The dead are beyond caring.

So what now?  Sleep, probably.  He got ready for bed and lay down, only then realizing that the bed was freezing and very, very large.  Too large for one person.

He'd never felt so alone in his life.

Strange.  Claire hadn't lived with him.  They had separate apartments and didn't spend every night together - they were both fairly private and independent people, both needed their own space.  He'd gone to sleep by himself more often than next to her.

And that had been fine with him.  He didn't need more - he had his work, he had some friends, and he had Claire everywhere in his life, there to reach out to on a moment's notice whenever he wanted.  Sharing hours of unconsciousness every night wasn't necessary.

But now... all he felt was loneliness, an intense awareness that there was nobody there, that he had nobody in his life to reach out to right now.  That one of the many roles that Claire had filled, his comfort in time of need, was empty, in a time of need greater than any he'd ever felt while she was alive.

There was nobody to turn to.  Nobody who would understand what he was feeling, or help him bear this loss.  The night suddenly seemed impossibly long.

And even after he got through the night, what about the morning?  Who would he turn to then?

Grief support groups.  A bunch of strangers, devotees of the self-help mania that had permeated society in recent decades.  What could they do?

Liz Olivet or some other counselor, who would dutifully take him through the Seven Stages of Grief.  What were they again?  He'd studied them in college - something about denial, anger, bargaining... psycho-babble.

Band-aids.  Ineffective ones.  Not much of a replacement for a living, breathing human being.  And useless in the face of this achingly empty bed.

He got out of bed, wandered into his living room.  On impulse, he picked up the phone and dialed.

"Joanna McCoy," a voice answered after the second ring.

"Hello Joey," he said, smiling at the sound of her voice.

"Hey Dad!  Hi, what's up?"

"Just calling to say hello.  How are you?"

"Pretty good, pretty good.  Good thing you caught me between exams."

"Oh, I'm sorry-" he'd forgotten it was exam season at Joanna's school.

"No, Dad, it's fine - I just finished my Business Organization exam and I'm not studying Taxation until tomorrow - my brain just feels like mush.  How are you?"

"Fine.  How are your exams going?"

"Not too bad, actually.  This year's so much easier than last year!  God, last year felt like boot camp."

"It's always better when you can take the courses you want instead of the compulsories."

"Yeah, no kidding.  I thought I was gonna die of boredom in Torts and Crim last year.  This year it's business, business all the way.  I feel like a kid in a candy store." Jack smiled.  He could never understand his daughter's fascination with corporate and business law, but he supposed it was her way of carving out her own identity, separate from her parents who had both gone into criminal.  He realized she was still speaking.

"...although it was pretty funny, I forgot to tell you last time we talked, one of your cases came up in my Contracts class a couple months ago."

"Contracts?"

"The Dr. Haas case.  Breach of contract and all that.  You know she's still in litigation over her fish oil cure."

"That's interesting.  Class action suit?"

"You bet.  Oh to be a little older.  I'd love to be on the team running that suit.  Can you imagine?  Same person gets tried criminally by Jack McCoy, civilly by Joanna McCoy."

"As long as she's not defended by Sharon McCoy, that's fine," Jack joked.

"Excuse me, Sharon _Estes_-McCoy.  And she wouldn't go up against you."

"No, she wouldn't.  She hates to lose."

"Right, Dad.  She'd kick your sorry ass," they shared a laugh.  "Hey, I heard some of the Crim students talking about that death penalty case of yours the other day.  Something happened with that?"

"What?"

"Michael Scott?  First person scheduled to be executed in New York?  That's supposed to happen sometime this spring, isn't it?"

"Yes.  It did.  Yesterday actually."

"Oh yeah?  Shows how far I've been buried in a pile of books, I didn't even hear about it.  Any press on it?  Reporters hounding you and all that?"

"No, it's been pretty mild.  A few stories in the paper and TV, but not a big deal."

"Good thing.  Yeah, they were talking about it, going back and forth, you know, pro and anti-DP.  I don't get the problem with it.  Like a piece of scum like him should be given three squares a day at taxpayer's expense.  Stick him in the ground and forget him, that's more than he deserves, right?"

"Right."

"Oh, shit, Dad, I just realized, I'm supposed to meet Nelson at the-"

"Oh, sorry-"

"No, it's OK.  It was nice talking to you.  You should call more often.  Don't be such a stranger, you know?"

"I will.  I love you, Joey."

"Love you too, Dad.  G'night."

And he was alone again.

He suddenly spotted a half-empty bottle of scotch, from last night.  Picked it up, gazing at it speculatively.  Now there might be a way to make the night a little shorter, make the loneliness cut less deeply.  He went to the kitchen and got himself a glass.


	5. Funeral

**CHAPTER 5: FUNERAL**

"...and it's a bright sunny morning on this lovely day in-" the cheerful voice on Jack's alarm clock radio was suddenly silenced as he rolled over in bed and hit the OFF button.  For a moment he stared at the ceiling, disoriented, before realizing that what he was feeling wasn't so much disorientation as it was a blinding headache and nausea.  He closed his eyes and rolled over again, burying his face in his pillow, hoping he could snap out of it.  No, no such luck.  Damn it, he hated waking up with a migraine.  The worst part was getting out of bed and navigating through a too-bright apartment to get his medication from the washroom.  Maybe Claire could get it for him-

He caught his breath as everything came back with a rush.

No, this wasn't a migraine.  This was a scotch hangover.  No need to go avoiding bright lights or taking medication, it would pass on its own.

Maybe it would take a long time to pass on its own.  Then maybe he wouldn't have to think about Claire.

**ooo000ooo**

He finally got up and mechanically made his breakfast, startled when his pager went off.  He checked it - the funeral home.  Called them, settled a few more details for the ceremony.

He started to clear his pager - wait, what was that?  There was an unanswered page on it, with Claire's number.  He felt his stomach lurch, but realized it must be Linda calling from Claire's place.  Funny, he hadn't heard it go off - oh.  It was from two days ago.  11:04pm.

That would have been when... when he was sleeping off the scotch he'd consumed during the day.  Had Claire tried to page him at home before going to the bar?  How could he not have heard that?  His pager was a hell of a lot louder than his phone, and he'd heard the phone when Curtis called to tell him Claire was at the hospital.

Probably in a deeper stage of sleep than when Curtis called, a few hours later.

God almighty.  But for a quirk in his sleeping patterns, Claire might still be alive.

Don't think like that.  There's no point.

**ooo000ooo**

Jack watched Mrs. Hysell get up at the podium and introduce herself.  He'd never really given much to thought to his future with Claire, but it certainly didn't involve planning her funeral or trying to summarize her life to a funeral director.  Jack brought his attention to Hysell.

"... a genuinely good person.  She was dedicated, idealistic, caring.  She strove to do what was right, to make the world a better place for her having been in it.  She graduated near the top of her class from Harvard law school, she could have taken any number of high-paying jobs with any number of law firms... but instead she chose to dedicate herself to represent the people, and bring to justice those who committed crimes.  Not as high-paying.  Not as glamorous.  Not as easy.  But that wasn't what Claire wanted; she wanted to make a difference, and she did."  Jack was once again struck by the fact that this really didn't have much to do with Claire.  You could say the same thing about any number of people who worked in the DA's office.  Or in the PD's office, for that matter.

"And she didn't just stop there.  She wasn't afraid to disagree with her superiors when she thought they were wrong.  She wasn't afraid to stand up for herself, for what she believed in.  She wasn't even afraid to question herself, to challenge herself, when she felt conflicted in her own beliefs."  Hysell paused for a moment, looking over the people gathered before her.

"On the last day of her life, Claire Kincaid witnessed an execution.  She went because she felt she had an obligation to do so.  She had helped to convict a man, helped to bring him to the executioner's table, and she felt she had to witness for herself what her actions had helped to bring about.  And this in spite of the fact that Claire didn't agree with the death penalty, that she had argued against it, that if she had had a choice that man would not have been executed."

_We saw him die, Jack.  Doesn't that mean anything to you?_

_Yes.  He's dead.  That case is very much closed._

Claire had been so frustrated with him, he remembered as Hysell continued.  He'd gone to Attica for her, and it hadn't changed a thing.  For either one of them, it seemed.  She hadn't made peace with it, and he hadn't changed his mind.

_I went because she asked me to._

_Why did she ask you to?_

_Because I believe in the death penalty._

He suddenly wondered at that.  Why did it sound strange, saying that yesterday?

He did, didn't he?

Did he?  Still?  He really hadn't thought about it.  He'd gone, he'd seen, he'd been disappointed that Claire still felt the same way, and he hadn't really thought about how he felt.  And then he'd been too busy getting drunk, and then too busy waiting around for Claire to die and then too busy planning for her funeral and dealing with her death.  He'd had more important things on his mind than Mickey Scott's passing and his own feelings about it.

Hysell was wrapping up the eulogy.  "The world needs more people like Claire Kincaid.  She will be sorely missed, not only for her warmth and her caring, but for her courage and conviction.  She will be missed, not only by her friends and family, but by all of those people in this world who need someone like her to fight for their rights, for justice, for a better world."

Claire's friend Marion Adams got up to play the piano, "a few pieces of music that Claire loved," Hysell had said.  He didn't recognize the piece she was playing - didn't know if it really was something that Claire loved.

He had no idea.  If he'd been asked what music to pick out, he couldn't have said what she would term as her favourite song.  She tolerated most of the music he listened to, as he tolerated most of hers, but they just hadn't spent enough time together for him to know what she would want played at her funeral.

They hadn't known each other that long, relatively speaking.  He had never met this woman, Marion, whom Claire had apparently been very close to.  Claire had never met his daughter Joanna.  He'd never even told Joanna about her - there had been no reason to.  Besides, he and his daughter didn't usually talk about personal things.  Just the law and current events.

_Like a piece of scum like him should be given three squares a day at taxpayer's expense.  Stick him in the ground and forget him, that's more than he deserves, right?_

_Right._

**ooo000ooo**

After the service, there was still the reception to go through.  So many people here, most of whom he didn't know.  And of course, there was Adam, and most of the staff from their floor at Hogan Place.  Some defense attorneys as well.

And cops.  A lot of cops.  Claire had always worked well with cops.  They seemed to appreciate her, treat her with slightly less suspicion and resentment than they treated the rest of the Hogan Place staff.  He saw Van Buren, Briscoe and Curtis, Briscoe looking a bit better than the other day, but still tired and old.  Standing with Van Buren and Curtis - did that mean that Van Buren hadn't fired him?  He joined them briefly.

"How are you doing, Counselor?" Van Buren asked him quietly.

"Fine, fine," he answered her.  That question was getting fairly annoying.

"Oh - Claire left this at the precinct," Van Buren showed him a notebook.  "It probably has case notes or something."

He took it from her, recognizing it. "Yes, that's her general purpose notebook.  Interviews and case notes.  I heard your message on her machine saying you had it.  Thanks," he put it in his pocket.  "Why did she come into the precinct?"

"She came in to talk to Lennie, actually, then stayed to chat.  We had Chinese takeout."

"Why'd she wanna talk to me?" Briscoe asked.

"I think it was probably about the execution."

Jack looked away from the sorrowful expression on Briscoe's face.  "What did she say?" he asked.

"We talked about the system.  Dealing with people's lives, knowing how much our jobs affect them.  How we each cope with that."  Jack nodded.  Well, he had no idea what Curtis had done, but he and Briscoe at least had 'coped' by getting disgracefully drunk.  Although if he'd been asked why he was getting drunk, he would have said there was no connection to the execution.  He still wasn't sure there was.

Apparently Claire had coped by trying to talk to people about it.  But she hadn't wanted to talk to him.  And who could blame her?

"She was having a hard time with it," Van Buren said.

"I know," Jack said.

"McCoy... if there's anything we can do..."

"Yeah.  Thanks," Jack said, and excused himself before Van Buren could go any farther.  The last thing he wanted right now was to be treated like a grieving widower by the cops.  Or hear about Claire's thoughts on the execution.  It didn't make any difference any more anyway.

_She said that what she'd seen would be with her for the rest of her life._

**ooo000ooo**

"Jack, thank you for arranging this," Linda said to him during a lull.

"You're welcome."

"We have to go to the lawyer's on Monday - you know, for her will and all of that."

"Claire had a will?" Jack was a little surprised.

"Yes, she drew one up during law school," Mac said.  "Her Contracts class had that as one of their assignments, so she went ahead and had hers notarized after she got it back."  Mac smiled a little at the memory.

Claire taking Contracts.  That was an amusing image.  Somehow he just couldn't see her as anything other than a criminal lawyer, but she had to have taken the compulsories too in her first year.  Probably hated them as much as Joanna had hated Torts and Criminal last year.

"Jack?" Linda said, a little sharply.  He brought his attention back to her.

"I'm sorry," he gestured to her to repeat herself.

"Would you like to come to the lawyer's?" she asked him patiently.

"Oh - no, I doubt I'd be in any of her official papers.  Do you want me there?" he asked.  She looked at him sadly.

"I would appreciate it, if you wouldn't mind."  He nodded, and excused himself as a couple he didn't know approached Linda to offer their condolences.

**ooo000ooo**

All right, the reception was all done, he'd stayed until the end, accepted condolences with what he hoped was a modicum of graciousness, just blanking out his mind and going through the motions.  And now everybody had gone home, he'd said goodbye to Linda and Mac, and gone to sign the papers for Claire's cremation.

Nothing is certain but death and taxes.  And paperwork.  Paperwork even after death, sign this, initial that, sign here too...

**ooo000ooo**

Now what?  It was late afternoon.  He supposed he could go home, back to his damn empty apartment... or back to his damn empty office... or maybe he could just start the bike and see where he ended up.

Stopped at a light.  A bar beckoned, promising a shortcut through yet another day.  He turned away, realizing that a bar was where he'd probably end up eventually.  Where else was there to go?

Another light.  St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church, said the sign.

_I'll come back to the Church,_ he'd thought during the night at the hospital. _ No bargaining.  Whether she lives or dies, I'll come back.  I've been away too long._

Two nights ago - was that how long it had been? - he'd felt the pull of the chapel, the need to seek comfort from a source greater than any he usually needed.  Where had that pull gone?  Was it just an instinctive reaction to the fear and uncertainty that he was feeling that night?

Was that what he needed right now?  To go into the church, seek out God as he had at the hospital?  Could God fill this emptiness, this intense loneliness?

He found himself parking his bike, going into the church, feeling uncertain as hell.

There was the Blessed Virgin, her hands out, blessing all of her children.  But she was just a statue.  No fitting substitute for anything real.

He looked around.  No.  This was just a building.  God didn't live here.  If He lived anywhere.  There wasn't any sense of comfort here, any more than there was in his apartment or his office or his bottle of scotch.

"May I help you?" he turned around, startled, as a youngish priest spoke to him softly.

"No, thank you, Father," he said automatically.  He glanced back at the statue, preparing to leave.

"Are you sure?"

He looked at the man, suddenly unsure.  "I'm not sure what I'm doing here," he finally said, feeling a little odd.  That wasn't anything he normally said.

"Why did you come in?"

"I... I don't know," he said slowly.

"Are you all right, sir?"

What a question.  He almost chuckled at that, nodded and started to turn around, to leave - and then he stopped and shook his head.

Are you all right?  That at least was one question he could answer definitely, out of all of the confusion of this whole situation.  He wasn't sure about much else right now, but he was absolutely sure that he was not all right.

"What's wrong?"

He shrugged.  "A woman I know died two days ago.  I... I don't know why I thought being here might help."

"Was she a friend of yours?"

"Yes."

"A close friend?"

"Yes."

"You were a couple?"

Jack hesitated before replying.  "Yes, I suppose we were.  We were colleagues... we were sleeping together too."

"And she died two days ago?"  Jack nodded.  "Why wouldn't you be here?"

"I'm not religious."

"People don't have to be religious to turn to God in troubled times.  Do you have anywhere else to go?"

"No, but I don't... I don't even know if I really believe in God.  I'm fairly sure I don't believe in the Church.  No offense, Father."

"None taken," the priest smiled.  "I'm Father John, by the way," he held out his hand.  Jack shook it.

"Jack McCoy."

"When was the last time you were in church?"

"Catholic church?  Probably when I got married."

"You're Catholic?"

"Lapsed.  I was brought up Catholic.  Went to St. Ignatius school."

"Really?"  The priest's eyes twinkled with amusement.  "Me too."

"Probably not the same one.  I grew up in Chicago."

"No, not the same one, then."  Father John looked at him for a moment.  "So you haven't been in church since you got married?"

"Not regular church."

"What do you mean?"

"I went to the hospital chapel the other night, when - when we were waiting for Claire to-" all of a sudden he realized he couldn't talk, that his eyes were filling with tears.  He looked away from Father John, cleared his throat a few times.  "Sorry," he murmured when he was back in control.  "I just came from her funeral."  Father John regarded him for a moment.

"Why don't you come into the office," he suggested.  Jack found himself nodding, a little surprised at himself again, and followed Father John down a narrow hallway into a small office.

"Have you eaten, Mr. McCoy?" Father John asked.

"What?"

"There was a reception after the funeral, right?  Did you eat?"

"Uh - no," Jack realized.

"I was just getting myself a couple of sandwiches.  Why don't you have one," he indicated a small plate on a coffee table in the office, explaining, "Most people don't really think about eating or sleeping or mundane things like that right after a loved one dies.  But you still have to take care of yourself."

"I wouldn't know what most people think about.  I've never done this before."

"You've never lost anybody?"

"Not like this.  My father died ten years ago, but we weren't very close.  And he'd been going downhill for a long time.  Claire - she, she was in an accident-" he stopped, annoyed, as his throat tightened again.

"In my line of work, I deal with a lot of grieving families and friends.  Have a sandwich."  They sat down and ate in companionable silence for a few minutes.  Finally Father John asked, "So why did you come in here today?"

"I don't know.  I guess... I didn't feel like going home.  Or going to work.  I... I just didn't know what else to do.  I didn't want to go back to a bar again."

"You've been drinking some in the last few days?"  Jack nodded.  "How much?"

"I drank most of a bottle of scotch last night.  Didn't feel very good about that this morning."

"No, I can imagine."  Father John chewed on his sandwich for a minute, then said, "This is none of my business, but... alcohol?  Does it play a large part in your life?"

"Are you asking if I'm an alcoholic?  No, I'm not.  And I do know what alcoholism is."  Father John gave him a questioning look.  "My father was one."

"Ah.  I don't mean to pry - it's just sort of second nature to me."

"Lots of alcoholics in your parish?"

"Yes, actually, including myself.  Just got my four year pin."

"Oh."

Silence.

"I do drink, but it's never affected my work, my personal relationships, anything."  He shrugged, uncomfortably aware that he sounded like he was justifying himself to this perfect stranger.  "And I'm aware that as the firstborn son of an alcoholic I'm at a high risk of becoming one myself."

"But alcohol can provide a way to get through a difficult time.  You found that out yesterday.  And this is going to be difficult."

"I know."

"You can come here, you know.  You don't have to turn to a bottle."

Jack sighed.  "No offense, Father, but... come here and do what?  I haven't been to church in a long time.  I'm too much of a skeptic to go along with most aspects of organized religion.  What would I do here?"

"Be with people.  Be with God.  This is a place in which God's presence is important.  And I get the feeling God hasn't had much of a presence in your life."

"No."

"There hasn't been much need, as far as you could tell."

"No."

"Things change.  God can help to get you through this, if you let Him."

"How?"

"You said you went to the chapel at the hospital.  What did you do?"

"I asked Him to help Claire.  And I asked Him to help me, if she didn't make it.  Help me to believe that she's not completely gone."

"Do you?"

"What?"

"Believe she's completely gone?  Or do you believe she's somewhere better?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Good reason to come here, then."

"And do what?" Jack repeated.

"Pray.  Pray for help, pray for faith."

"Should I say rosaries and Hail Mary's and Our Father's as well?"  Jack regretted his sarcasm immediately, realizing the man was just trying to help.  "There's a reason I left the Church.  I couldn't see the point in it - mouthing the same words until they cease to have any meaning, following rules that don't make sense, out of a wish to please a Being that you have no proof of.  That doesn't fit into my view of reality."  He paused.  "Why say the words?  What does God care?"

"I don't think He does.  We don't say them for Him.  We say them for us."

Jack looked at him, puzzled.

"No, really.  Rituals have very little meaning in and of themselves, but they can be a comfort, especially in times of need.  They can help you to feel that you're not so alone.  It's not about saying words that have no meaning, it's about saying words that have been said through millennia by people going through the same doubts and pains as you.  People who have survived that pain with the help of God and with the help of each other."

Jack thought about that for a moment.

"You don't normally feel the need to be with others, do you?  To be like other people?"

"No, not really."

"But you've probably felt the need to be with others more in the last few days than you have for the last few years."  Jack shrugged.  Yes, he had - at least when he wasn't feeling an intense need to get away from people who were shoving their pity at him.  "Do you have anybody to be with?  Friends?  Family?"

"I have my work.  That's always been enough."

"Not right now, though."

"No, not right now," he felt his throat closing up again, thinking of going back to work, seeing Claire's absence there again.  Her empty office, her empty desk.  Felt a sudden surge of anger.  He stood up, shaking his head.  "This is ridiculous."

"What is?"

"This.  Coming into a church - not wanting to go back to work - you know what I realized today at her funeral?  I don't even - I didn't even know her favourite music."  He felt tears starting, wiped them away impatiently.  "She wasn't my wife.  She wasn't even - most people weren't even supposed to know we were sleeping together.  And we wouldn't have lasted.  She was too young for me, too idealistic."

"You think so?" Father John asked quietly.  Jack looked away from his compassionate eyes.

"We weren't - we weren't even - it's not like I've lost the love of my life.  She was just a woman I worked with and slept with, and not even the first.  She was just a notch on my bedpost," he said bitterly, remembering Adam's cynical words.

"Does it make her loss any less painful, to tell yourself that she wasn't that important to you?"  Jack turned on Father John angrily.

"How would you know how important she was?"

"People don't spend the night at a hospital or turn to God for help over the end of a casual affair."

"How would you know?"

Father John shook his head slightly.  "Priests are not exempt from human emotions, Mr. McCoy.  And we're not blind - at least, some of us aren't.  You aren't here because this woman was just a fling and now you're a little down because you don't have a date for Saturday night.  You're here because you're dealing with a kind of loss that you've never had to deal with before.  Minimizing it won't make it go away."

"She was thinking of quitting," Jack said angrily.

"I beg your pardon?"

"She was thinking of quitting the DA's office, where we work.  I went to her apartment yesterday, and one of the messages on her machine was from the U.S. Attorney's office.  She'd put in a resume with them, and I didn't even know.  How close could we have been if she didn't even tell me that?"

"Had you two been fighting lately?"

Jack found himself laughing.  That was the understatement of the year.

"Did I say something funny?"

"You have no idea how funny.  Yes, we were fighting.  We were - I actually said, right before I left the bar that night, I said to hell with her.  I was thinking we should go our separate ways.  And apparently so was she, because she was going to leave the DA's office."

"Would leaving the job mean leaving you?"

"Of course."

"Are you sure?"

"What we had together was based on our work.  If we weren't working together... how long would it have lasted?"

"Is that how your other relationships with your coworkers ended?"  Jack looked away.  "What were you fighting about?"

"The death penalty, the justice system... her job..."

"What about it?"

"She was thinking of quitting."

"I thought you didn't know that."

"I didn't know she was serious about it.  I didn't know she'd started to look for another job."

"What about the death penalty?  Why were you arguing about it?"

"I'm for it."  There it was again.  It felt strange to say that.

"Why was that a problem?"

"You've heard of Mickey Scott?"

"First man executed in the State of New York, the other day-" Father John's eyes widened slightly as he put two and two together.  "You two worked in the DA's office."

"We prosecuted him.  Then we went to witness his execution."

"Both of you?"

"Yes."

"And what did you think?"

"She said it was savage.  That executions were savage."

"Do you think it was?"

"I don't know any more.  He died.  And then she died."  Father John looked puzzled.  "We went, and then she took the day off.  I did too, but we never connected.  I... I was trying to reach her all day... I ended up spending the day at a bar, getting drunk, and she stood me up, and then I went home and... and then by the time she finally got to the bar to pick me up, one of the cops who'd been to the execution was there.  He was drunk, she drove him home... and that's when..." damn it.  He couldn't seem to get through anything without being on the verge of tears again.

"Do you feel guilty about that?" Father John asked after a moment.

"What part?"

"Any of it."

"Or all of it?" Jack sighed, walked over to the window, looked out into the churchyard.  "I don't know.  If I'd stayed at the bar... if I'd tried to talk to her before that day, really talk to her... if I'd woken up when she paged me... if I hadn't asked for the death penalty..."

"You know, subconsciously you may be feeling that you're being punished for something.  Don't.  God doesn't work that way."

Jack turned, narrowing his eyes at Father John.  "You're not much like the Jesuits I grew up with."

"Considering the fact that you're a lapsed Catholic, I'm going to take that as a compliment," Father John said humorously.

"Believe me, it is."

"They were part of the reason you left?"

"When you're raised by Jesuits, you grow up either obedient or impertinent."

Father John nodded in agreement.  "I'd say impertinent in my case as well.  Impertinence doesn't preclude faith."

"Really?"

"I may wear the collar, but that doesn't mean I've left my brain at the church door.  I don't believe God demands that our faith be stupid."  He paused.  "So what do you think about the death penalty now that you've seen it?"

"I don't know any more."

"Do you believe it was wrong?"

"I don't know.  All I know is I watched them both die in pretty much the same way.  And I would have done anything to keep Claire alive... just watching her breathe out for the last time, it, it..." Jack stopped, unable to continue for a minute.

"Claire was trying to get me to see that Scott was still a human being.  She - at his execution, she actually had tears in her eyes afterwards.  I thought it was just stupid sentimentality.  But..." he shook his head.  "I don't know if the fact that he was a human being is enough for me to say his life should have been spared, but... I suppose she was right about one thing at least.  It wasn't just like any other sentence."

"Why?"

"It's final.  The way she died, the way my father died... that's something to fight against, not something to speed up."

"So you're against it now?"

"No, I just... I don't know how I feel about it."

"It's not a simple sentence any more, is it?"

"No, I suppose not."

"Good.  It's not supposed to be."

"You're against it, aren't you?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm undecided.  I've come across too much evil in this world to really believe that everybody is a child of God, that every human life deserves protection.  There really are monsters out there, and I don't know how else to deal with them."

"But?"

"But I do think it's playing God.  And we have to be very, very careful when we do that.  The real one gets pretty miffed otherwise."  Jack gave a small chuckle.

"Is that what we were doing?  What I was doing?  Playing God?"

Father John shrugged helplessly. "I don't know.  I don't know you well enough.  I do know that no death is simple," he said gently.  "Mickey Scott's, your father's, Claire's... every death has repercussions."

"I know."

"Mr. McCoy... you aren't used to that, I don't think.  I don't know you very well, but it seems to me that you're not used to things you can't control," he said hesitantly.  Jack nodded in acknowledgment.  "You can't control most of what you're going through right now.  Grief and loss... they're frightening.  We can't deal with them on our own.  No matter how independent we may think we are."

"So I've been told," Jack said wearily.  Father John looked at him questioningly.  "I've been the recipient of a lot of sympathetic looks for the last two days.  And our departmental shrink came by to tell me about support groups and counseling and taking time off..."

"All of those are probably good ideas."  Jack sighed and looked away.  "Dropping into a bottle is a bad idea.  Even if it may seem easier and even if you can do it all by yourself."

"I just can't see myself at a support group."

"Well, that may not be helpful to you.  Give yourself time."  Jack nodded.  "And definitely give yourself time off."

"I don't see how sitting at home is going to help-"

"Time off doesn't mean sitting at home.  It can mean being with family or friends, or coming to church, or seeing a counselor, or whatever.  It doesn't and it probably shouldn't mean sitting there doing nothing."

Jack nodded.

"Mr. McCoy... can you tell me a little bit about Claire?"  Jack looked at him, a bit surprised by the request.

"Why?  What good would that do?  She's gone."

"Not to you, not really.  Her body's gone, but her memory is still alive.  You're still going to see her everywhere you go, and trying to forget her or ignore how you feel... that's not going to help.  Maybe talking to somebody who didn't know her, maybe talking about the last couple of days, might help you come to terms with this."  Jack shrugged and looked out the window again.

"You know... the fact that you were going through conflict with her makes her sudden death more difficult.  It's like she left in the middle of an argument, and you can never finish it now.  Not with her."  Father John cleared his throat.  "But I'm here.  You can try to tell me about it, come to terms with her as best you can."

Jack regarded him for a long moment, then hesitantly sat back down and started to speak.

**ooo000ooo**

Jack smiled slightly at himself as he lit a candle at the altar a few hours later.  Here was something he hadn't done in about twenty years.

He looked up, gazing curiously at the stained glass windows of the church.  Pretty enough, but they didn't say much to him.

Well, I'm here, he thought as he crossed himself and bowed his head.  I don't know if this counts as going back to the Church, but I'm here, Lord.  I'm here because I don't much want to live in a bottle like Dad did and I don't think I can avoid that without You.  Bear with me, though, this is not exactly my forte.  I am as You made me, and that includes skepticism and an instinctive need to be a wiseass, even when praying.

I'm also here because I want to feel that Claire is with You.  I don't know how else I'm going to be able to accept her loss.  This was a bit too much to dump into my lap all at once, but I suppose You have Your reasons.

He paused, thinking of Claire.  It had been comforting to talk about her, tell Father John something about her, how they'd met, what she had been like.  What they'd argued about.  What he would have wanted to say to her, if he could have.  He pictured her for a moment, smiling at him.

Claire, if you could see me now... I know you'd probably find this fairly amusing, me lighting a candle for you at a church.

No, actually, you wouldn't.  You always had a lot more understanding and compassion than I did.

This is going to be hard, Claire.  Even if things were starting to go badly between us... having it end like this, it's going to be hard.  I'll try not to deal with it by doing things that would have pissed you off, though.  I'll try not to drink too much, I'll try not to just forget you.  You deserve better than that.  But... it's not going to be easy.

**ooo000ooo**

Jack left the church, heading for his bike, not really thinking much of anything.  He spotted a pay phone and decided to give Adam a call.

"Yes?"

"Adam, it's Jack.  I'm going to need some time off next week, to deal with, uh, Claire's things and her will and all of that.  Linda's asked me to help out a bit."

"Take as long as you need."

"Thanks.  It shouldn't take more than a day or so."  There was a silence, and then Jack cleared his throat and made himself go on.  "I... uh... I'm also going to take some personal time, maybe a week or so."

Adam felt his eyebrows climb up, but kept his voice neutral as he responded, "Good idea.  You've probably got about a year's worth of leave time backed up anyway."

"I don't need a year, Adam," Jack returned a little brusquely.

"Fine, suit yourself," Adam said, his habitual gruff voice back in place.  Jack smiled, reassured by that as he hadn't been by much else in the last few days.

"Jack, you know if there's anything I can-"

"I know."

"You want to come over for dinner?" Adam said abruptly, startling them both.

"To the Schiff mansion?  That's a novel idea."

"Do you want to or not?"

Jack started to demur automatically, then stopped himself.  Yes, he did.  The other choice was going back to his empty apartment, and back to his bottle of scotch.

"I'd love to."

"I'll see you at six then."

"Thanks, Adam."  Jack hung up the phone and paused thoughtfully for a moment, then headed back to his bike.

**ooo000ooo**

**Author's Notes:** Thanks a million, Kyllikki, for permission to use your Deus Ex Machina answering machine for this and the other Aftershock stories.  And thanks to Chris for beta-reading, and for being my own personal pro-death penalty Jack :)

If anybody wants the actual script for Aftershock, e-mail me at

ciroccoj2002 at yahoo dot com


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